1953: A Pilot Cutter is Launched in Southwestern England

July 9, 1953

A pilot cutter was launched in the town and civil parish of Dartmouth in southwestern England. The vessel was built by the Dartmouth-area shipbuilder Philip and Son for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB) — now called the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company — for use on the section of the River Mersey in the vicinity of northwestern England’s Port of Liverpool. This cutter was named after Edmund Gardner, who served as chairman of MDHB from 1948 to 1950.

The christening duties for MV Edmund Gardner at her launch were performed by Hetty Crail. At the time, her husband Robert Crail was director of the Cunard Steamship Company. He was also a member of MDHB and chairman of its Pilotage Committee.

“The Mersey’s New Pilot Boat,” announced the Liverpool Echo in the headline for its account of the launch. MV Edmund Gardner officially began operations on the Mersey on December 2 of that year. As a pilot vessel, the cutter was extensively used to transport maritime pilots to ships traveling to or from the Port of Liverpool. While on board those ships, maritime pilots were responsible for safely guiding vessels through that portion of the Mersey.

A typical workday for MV Edmund Gardner on the river took place on April 15, 1960, when she was documented as having transferred maritime pilots to or from a total of 16 ships — 10 inbound and six outbound — within an eight-hour timeframe. During her long career on the Mersey, MV Gardner had only one accident. This involved what turned out to be only a minor collision with the ore carrier Iron Horse in 1963.

MV Edmund Gardner remained in service until being decommissioned in April 1981. The following year, she was purchased by the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool. This pilot cutter can now be seen at the part of the museum located at Canning Graving Dock. (The accompanying photo of the vessel at that site was taken in 2023.)

Photo Credit: Murgatroyd49 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Murgatroyd49) – licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on MV Edmund Gardner, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Edmund_Gardner