SHOWBOAT! How the paddler Alexandra found a new lease of life
In April and May 1932 the society and gossip columns of the London press were abuzz with rumours of the imminent arrival of a fashionable new Thames attraction. Billed as the ‘Show Boat’, the vessel concerned was actually the former south coast paddle steamer Alexandra, which was being heavily modified to provide cabaret, dancing and dinner cruises from Westminster Pier ‘in the best American Mississippi tradition’, and thereby establish herself as London’s first ever party boat.
Alexandra had been launched in April 1879 from Scott & Co’s yard in Greenock to the order of the Port of Portsmouth & Ryde United Steam Packet Co Ltd.
Built of iron, she was fitted with a two-cylinder compound diagonal engine giving her a trial speed of almost 15 knots. In the style of the time, she had an open foredeck, a narrow deck saloon aft with walkways around the outside, and a promenade deck above.
Soon after Alexandra had entered service between Portsmouth and Ryde in June 1897, her owners were bought up by the London & South Western Railway and the London Brighton & South Coast Railway, who formed a Joint Committee to operate the ferry service.
She was re-boilered in
