Argus and Midge

 The Princess Alexandra and the Moya off the Skelligs c.1903. Photo NLI. I have no photos, or even drawings of the Argus or the Midge, so this photo will have to do

I have, for many years, made fun of the Ballast Board/Irish Lights, particularly in the nineteenth century, for their abject slowness in getting things done. It took them seven years to place a fog bell at the Baily lighthouse; decades to commence building a new light on the Fastnet after its sister light on Calf Rock was swept away; decades too to commence the building of new lights at Fanad and Mew Island; and 150 years to replace the too-high light at Clare Island with a more efficient one at Achillbeg. Often it took a disaster and a newspaper-fuelled public outcry to stir them into action.

In the interests of balance, therefore, I give you the story of the Ballast Board tenders, Argus and Midge, to show how the Ballast Board found itself ensnared in red tape whichever way it turned: -

In 1851, the Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin, aka the Ballast Board (the precursor of Irish Lights) bought itself a brand new toy, a steam vessel called  Argus, at a cost of £20,000. She was an iron paddle steamer built by Caird and Co., Greenock. As the number of light stations, beacons and buoys increased around the shores of Ireland, so the commissioners needed a dedicated steam tender to bring the lads around to do their annual inspections and also to do reliefs, deliver supplies, move lightships and ferry buoys around as needed. All agreed it was a great ship – inspections were done on time, lightkeepers rarely complained of a delay in receiving supplies of water and oil, buoys were moved and inspected as required and, all in all, everything worked as it should.

At that time, the Ballast Board controlled its own funding. Trinity House collected the tolls from ships and apportioned the money out to the three boards (England and Wales; Scotland and the Isle of Man; and Ireland). The Ballast Board, the only one of the three boards whose commissioners received no renumeration, by careful husbandry amassed over £100,000, which could be ploughed back into the service in the erection of new lights, buoys, beacons., lightships etc. Any new projects had to be okayed by Trinity House but, financially at least, the Ballast Board was a relatively independent body.

Ballast House (with the clock) on Westmoreland Street, Dublin, the offices of the old Ballast Board, in 1972, prior to its demolition in 1980

All that changed around 1853-54, when the Ballast Board, which was responsible for all works in Dublin port, like dredging, reclaiming, quay-work etc, as well as Ireland's sea lights, was split in two. The Dublin port element retained the name 'Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin'; whereas the lighthouse lads became the 'Port of Dublin Corporation'. Sounds a bit like the People's Front of Judea. (The split was finalised in 1867 when the Commissioners of Irish Lights was formed.)

One of the by-products of this was that the Port of Dublin Corporation, still known as the Ballast Board, now had to report to the Board of Trade, and its finances were transferred to the Mercantile Marine Fund, controlled by the Board of Trade. This meant that all the money they had accrued through careful husbandry, over £100,000, was transferred, in effect, to the Board of Trade. It also meant that any new projects not only had to be given the go-ahead by Trinity House but had to be signed off by the Board of Trade too.

If the new Ballast Board thought the prevarication of Trinity House was bad, they must have been tearing their hair out with the Board of Trade, who seemed to stall and prevaricate on every proposal that came their way. Money seems to have been the be-all and end-all and many projects were turned down due to cost. Worse still, they made the Ballast Board sell the 'under-used' Argus to Trinity House, for £10,000, half the amount they had paid for it two years previously, deciding it was cheaper to simply rent a steamer from that body or employ light sailing vessels whenever they was needed.

Fast forward to December 1860 and one of the Ballast Board's commissioners, Sir James Dombrain is giving evidence to a commission looking into the workings of the three lighthouse boards. In the intervening years, the Ballast Board had manged to get the Board of Trade to buy the Midge, a small steamer, (the Freeman's Journal called it a '45-ton cock-boat') as a buoy-boat and to move light-vessels when required.

Sir James Dombrain. He had actually been the founder of the Irish Coastguards

The Midge, the only vessel belonging to the Irish Board, is quite unsuited to the purpose of inspection, said Sir J. I consider her a most dangerous vessel and wholly unsuited for the purpose for which she was intended. Only within the last fortnight, she had to take out a light-ship to replace another, merely as far as the Kish, and she could not accomplish it. It was only blowing moderately strong...

She was built under the orders of the Board of Trade and it was very strongly urged upon them to have a vessel sufficiently large to do her duty, but the President of the Board of Trade, at the time, limited the expense to a certain sum; he would not allow a few hundred more to have a proper vessel and hence, the unfortunate craft that we have got...

He went on to say that the arrangement when selling the Argus was that Trinity House would have a steamer in Milford Haven at the Ballast Board's disposal but it seemed it was always a great inconvenience to them, even if they got permission from the Admiralty, to lend it out. As a consequence, some lighthouses had not been inspected for two or three years and now they didn't bother even putting in a request. The Board of Trade had advised them to make an arrangement with the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company to move lightships, at £120 per lift, but that company could not guarantee they would have a boat available at the drop of a hat.

As regards the sale of the Argus, he said that, prior to her introduction, supplies had been delivered by sailing vessels. After the sale, they had to revert to these sailing vessels. Only that year (1860) they found that two of these vessels which had been loaded with oil in Dublin at the start of May, had not reached their destinations on the west coast by the end of September. The Argus, he said, was sent to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea during the Crimean war and proved to be one of the best vessels in the fleet. She was purchased by a sultan who was using it as his royal yacht.

Trinity House had lent them a steamer for their 1859 inspection (probably the Vivid) but she had been totally unable to cope with the heavy weather on the west coast of Ireland, meaning some outlying stations had been left unvisited. The commissioners had been obliged to leave the vessel in the Shannon and had completed all their visits along the south and east coasts by car by the time the captain considered it safe enough to leave the Shannon.

These are but a few extracts from a lengthy diatribe by JD on the sale of the Argus and the uselessness of the Midge. They made the papers, which went to town on the Board of Trade.

The following year the Ballast Board applied to the Board of Trade to purchase a new steamer. There was not an ounce of dissention and the Princess Alexandra, which served for 40 years, joined the fleet in 1864.

The Princess Alexandra c 1903, a year before she was sold