PS Medway Queen

PS Medway Queen was built by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company at Troon, Scotland, in 1924 for service on the River Medway and in the Thames Estuary. Trialled on the River Clyde, she was delivered to be part of the "Queen Line" fleet of the New Medway Steam Packet Company based at Rochester, Kent. She steamed on routes from Strood and Chatham, to Sheerness, Herne Bay and Margate in Kent, and to Clacton and Southend in Essex. The novelist William Matthew Scott was one of the earliest passengers on the Herne Bay–Southend route. On 3 August 1929, Medway Queen collided with Southend Pier, Essex, and suffered extensive damage to her bows. After attending the Coronation Fleet Review for King George…