For a long time, the accepted rule has been that steamers were only capable of carrying a maximum 12 ton load. This was, I suspect, calculated by simple mathematics – Motor boats carried a maximum of 20 tons, boilers and engines weighed in the region of 8 tons, therefore steamers could only carry 12 tons. Indeed this was perpetuated in our leaflet.

Whilst rooting about at the BW Archives at Gloucester last year, I was told about some gauging records that had recently come to light. On examination, I found that they were a set of books recording all the craft passing through the toll station at Brentford, between 1915 and 1928.

The record taken of each craft showed the gauging number, the four measurements of dry side taken, the calculated displacement and, most important of all, the recorded tonnage.

For the 8 instances that ‘President’ passed through as a steamer, only once was the load less than 12 tons with all the other loads in excess of 14 tons with the heaviest a massive 18 tons 11cwt ( 18,846 kgms) of Lyles sugar and hemp.

So, let us no longer quote 12 tons as a steamer load. Indeed some of the wooden steamers were recorded as carrying up to 20 tons, when I suspect, as the old boatman’s saying goes, “the sparrers were drinking off the gunnels”!

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Note: this refers to the imperial ton = 2,240 pounds = 1.016 tonnes = 1,016 kgm