The Story of the PSPS Collection

With the formation of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society in 1959, a group of enthusiasts got together in the UK to try and promote these unique vessels as well as promoting their heritage. Many of these enthusiasts looked to the past to remember with great nostalgia the great steamers of their youth. Within a few short years, all paddle steamers had disappeared. So, in the mid 1960s the Paddle & Pleasure Steamer Historical Trust was formed to collect together important relics and associated ephemera in order to educate the public through displays.

At the helm was Harold Collard Stone who had always been a committed enthusiast. He bought together many items and personally purchased collections such as the 'Ladywell Collection' that was a collection of important artefects from the Belle Steamers. In addition, a number of items were donated to the Society such as the telegraphs from the Consul and wheel from the Princess Elizabeth. This material formed the nucleus of the collection that we have today.

A great deal of this material was placed on loan with various museums around the UK. But by the mid 1990s, the progress being made by the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society with heritage prompted the amalgamation of its offshoot collection - the Paddle & Pleasure Steamer Historical Trust. Thus by the late 1990s, an extensive project was launched under professional guidance to manage the PSPS Collection to the highest possible museum standards.

The intial problem was one of documentation. The process of sorting loans and paperwork as well as putting in place collection management procedures took some eight years. The second issue was that of sorting and cataloguing the collection. In 2003, a major project was embarked upon to place the entire collection onto a computer database. This was achieved in 2006 but due to the acquistion of a massive collection in early 2007, the work is still in progress. To date, some 15,000 items have been catalogued with around another 6,000 still to be processed. Each object is meticlously marked and over a page of information is recorded about it. Images of each object will be linked to each record in the future. It is now possible for countless numbers of searches to be undertaken which now makes the PSPS Collection totally accessible for the first time.

In 2004, the Society moved its entire reserve collection for the first time into secure and environmentally stable storage in Kent. Future projects will include upgrading storage to the very highest museum standards. It is hoped that a study centre will be set up in the years ahead to make this fascinating heritage available to the public for the first time.