THE PADDLE STEAMER BARRY:

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The Paddle Steamer Barry was built for the Town of her name: Barry, Glamorgan, South Wales. In her time she bore several names. Her service in Word War 1, saw her become Barryfield and in WW 2: Snaefell.

On two occassions she was Waverley, although never built as a Waverley class, she is a distant relation in name, stepping in between the Waverley gaps of the times. There have been quite a few actual Waverleys over the years. The Waverley lost at Dunkirk, had been virtually retired and moth balled until her Country needed her, She sailed under her own name for Dunkirk and the Barry / Waverley became HMS Snaefell.

Sadly the older Waverley was lost off Dunkirk and the Barry now Snaefell lost herself approx a year later.

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The PS Barry bore the name Waverley twice: She has been reported as being the only Waverley not to carry the title from her creation. The vessel was a fine looking paddle steamer built by the John Brown shipyard in Clydebank for the Barry Railway Company who adopted a funnel livery associated on the Clyde with the NBR fleet - red with black top and white band - although the Barry Railway's white band was narrower. She was called Barry, named after her base port on the coast of South Wales between Cardiff and Swansea. From 1907 when she arrived from Clydebank Barry ran across the Channel from Barry to Minehead and Weston. After four years she was sold to the Campbell company, abandonning her tricolour funnel for Campbell's all white stack livery. She continued as the Barry for some years and served far and wide in the Great War taking part in the Galipoli landings serving in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas being based at Salonika. There her name was changed to Barryfield to avoid confusion with the American destroyer USS Barry. After the war she came to Troon for a complete rebuild by Ailsa Shipbuilding. In 1926 she changed her name, becoming the Bristol Channel fleet's second Waverley although she spent almost all of her time as Waverley on the company's south coast services at Brighton In their book 'West Coast Steamers' Duckworth & Langmuir designate her Waverley (II) of the Campbell fleet. Requisitioned again in 1939 she had to be renamed again, as the fifth Waverley already had the title HMS Waverley. So the sixth Waverley became HMS Snaefell. Like the fifth Waverley she rushed to the rescue of the Allied troops at Dunkirk in May 1940 and the two Waverley's may have been close to each other in that desperate mission. Unlike the Clyde's Waverley she survived the Dunkirk onslaught but her reprieve was short - just over a year later, on 5th July 1941, she succumbed to the attack of Luftwaffe bombers off Sunderland. Thus the two fine Clyde-built paddlers, united in title and with over 70 years of yeoman service between them passed into history service under the White ensign