Find a Picture of the SS Emperor

Every once in a while the fine folks that handle the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa Queries get an interesting genealogy research question that they aren't sure how to answer or even where to look for the answer. When that happens they often post the question to the BIFHSGO Members-only Discussion Group on Facebook. Here is one such question that was recently posted:

I have had an enquiry from somebody looking for a pictures of the ship SS Emperor–owned by Temperleys Line and sailed from London to Plymouth, arriving in Quebec City on 29 July 1872. Any suggestions? Thanks.

First of all, I love questions like these. It is only a single question and it has specific details.

For questions about old ships I often turn to two resources: Norway-Heritage and The Ships List.

A search of Norway-Heritage for the S/S/ Emperor of the Temperley Line resulted in:

Screen capture of the search results for the Temperley Line S/S Emperor from Norway-Heritage.

According to Norway-Heritage it doesn't make sense that the ship arrived in Quebec City on July 29, 1872 since it would take more than 7 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean at that time and it left London on July 22. But we will deal with that later, we have a picture to find. Unfortunately no other details are available on this site.

However a search of The Ships List didn't list the Emperor for the Temperley Line. That might make sense if the ship wasn't owned by Temperley but chartered as indicated by the results on Norway-Heritage. However, there is also a disclaimer on The Ships List page of:

"The following fleet list is not complete by any means, but is an attempt to collect the names of the companies, a brief history of each and the names of the vessels they used."

So, where to look next?

I've had some success in the past using the Lloyd's Register of Shipping. A number of these registers have been digitized and archived on the Internet Archive by the Lloyd's Register, Heritage & Education Centre, including the 1872 copy. Flipping through this book we can find the various ships named "Emperor":

Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipper. From 1st July, 1872, to the 30th June, 1873 (London: Wyman and Sons, Printers, 1872).

As you can see, there are several ships of that name in 1872. So how do we narrow it down to the ship we want?

For that we can turn to the newspapers. Since the ship is leaving out of England hopefully the British newspapers collection on Findmypast has a mention of that vessel. But don't search on a last name but on the keywords "Temperley" and "Emperor". Only nine articles came back from that search with several of them from the Lloyd's List published in London, England. Here is the clipping from the July 22, 1872 edition of the Lloyd's List for "London - Vessels Entered Outwards for Foreign Ports."

"Vessels Entered Outwards for Foreign Ports," Lloyd's List, 22 Jul 1872, p. 6; digital images, Findmypast (www.findmypast.com : accessed 26 Mar 2020), British newspapers.

The columns are: Port, Vessel, Master, Fig., Tn, Dk., Broker, Entd, Class.

So it looks like the Temperley's Emperor had a Master with the last name of Leighton. In the list of ships in the Lloyd's Register of Shipping there is an Emperor recorded with a Master of "R.Leightn". That looks like a good match. It seems that this Emperor was a screw type vessel built of iron that was built by Napier in Glasgow in 1849 and it had the Official Number 13594.

We have a bit more information but still no picture. Maybe searching for the Napier shipbuilders in Glasgow might give us a lead. A google search lead me to the Wikipedia page for Robert Napier and Sons. But we don't know if this is the right Napier. However, at the bottom of that Wikipedia page there was a link to the Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Don't you just love it when there are links to sources and external pages in the Wikipedia articles!

On the Caledonian Maritime Research Trust home page using the ship name Emperor and 1849 as the year it was built we get back:

Screen capture of search results for Emperor built in 1849 on Caledonian Maritime Research Trust site.

Only one ship built by a Napier and this is the ship with the O.N. (Official Number) 13594. The same number found in the Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Looks like a really good match. Clicking on the vessel name reveals the following information:

Screen capture of details for Emperor built in 1849 on Caledonian Maritime Research Trust site.

It seems that it was originally built as an cargo iron paddle steamer by Robert Napier of Govan, Scotland. However, in 1871 it was converted to a screw steamer. But the best news was when scrolling to the bottom of the page a picture of the ship was found.

Paddle Steamers Rob Roy, Emperor and Queen of Scotland (William Griffin) Photo credit: Hull Maritime Museum.

This was painted circa 1849 since that is when the Emperor was launched. This would have been when the ship was an iron paddle steamer.

As for the date of arrival being July 29, 1872. That just didn't make sense since it took much longer than seven days to make the Atlantic crossing in the late 1800s. So it was off to look up of the Canadian passenger lists on Ancestry for the Emperor arriving in 1872.

Ancestry.com, "Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935," database and images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Mar 2020); citing S.S. Emperor passenger list dated 22 July 1872, p. 1.

As you can see, the date is 22 July 1872, the date of the departure. So when did it arrive in Quebec?

Once again we turn to the newspapers and come across an entry in the August 13, 1872 edition of the North British  Daily Mail where on page 7 under "Arrivals at Foreign Ports" it is recorded:

Emperor (ss), at Quebec, Aug. 10.

It took a bit of effort to track all this down but now we have a picture of the vessel, although before conversion to a screw steamer, the date of departure, and the correct date of arrival in Quebec. All done without leaving the comfort of your home. Not bad for an hour or two of effort.