Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Painting of the New Passage Ferry Boat CHRISTOPHER THOMAS. The small steamer at right is the other ferry on the service RELIEF. Signed and dated bottom right. Stuck onto paper mount with inscription.

CHRISTOPHER THOMAS (official number 45723). Built by Henderson, Coulborn and Co. of Renfrew in 1864 for the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway, and was named after a prominent Bristol soap manufacturer who was the chairman of the company. The ‘Union’ company, as it was known, had a railway running from Bristol Temple Meads to New Passage, where (until the Severn Tunnel opened) a ferry ran across the Severn to Portskewett; it also had a short branch from Portskewett to a junction with the main line from Gloucester to South Wales. The Christopher Thomas was one of three paddle ferries that provided the connecting service between the two lengths of railway, and gave sterling service for over twenty years until the Severn Tunnel was opened in 1888. Thereafter she was bought by W.S. Ogden of Cardiff (reportedly a Timber Merchant) who re-engined her and ran her as a coaster trading between Bristol Channel Ports and ports in West Wales and Northern Ireland until sold again to trade in West Africa leaving the UK in January 1895. She ended her days on a river in West Africa in 1902.