Requisitioned Ships

[Brian James]

Steam Tugboat James Paterson was one of a number of tugboats used by the Melbourne Harbour Trust to tow and push larger vessels in and out of Port Melbourne and Docks. She was built in 1902 at South Shields, UK, and was broken up at Williamstown in 1966. She is named after James Paterson, a Scottish immigrant who came to Melbourne in 1852, and established a large business which included a towage business in Port Phillip Bay. This was his main tugboat in that business. Mr Paterson was Mayor of Melbourne in 1876-1877. The vessel was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy in WWI, and swept for mines (pictured), laid off southern Australia by the German raider SMS Wolf, and did so again with HMAS Coogee around Cape Everard, off the south eastern coast of Victoria in January 1919. Captain Hartley Watson was the skipper of this tug for more than forty years, from 1907 to 1947, and that is probably him up on the bridge. He steadfastly refused to cover-in the bridge, but it was done as soon as he retired (pictured).