Home At Princes Dock, Glasgow

The Donaldson Line's home base was Prince's Dock, Govan Glasgow. Prince's Dock was the largest dock in the upper Clyde. When Alister came to Glasgow this is where his ship berthed.

Prince's Dock closed in the 1970s. In 1988 the area was used for the Glasgow Garden festival. The docks have largely been filled in and the area has been renamed 'Pacific Quay'. I do not know why, maybe it is after one of the quays in the dock; the Donaldson Line certainly ran a route into the Pacific and up the West Coast to Vancouver through the Pananma Canal so maybe there is some historic basis for the name. Or maybe quay sounds more upmarket than dock.

In 2010 the Prince's Dock, sorry Pacific Quay site contains the Glasgow Science Centre, BBC Scotland and the Festival Park from 1988. Further rather nice office blocks are being added but there are an awful lot of cars.

The only old dock building that has survived is the hydraulic power station that provided power to the dockyard cranes.


View Prince's Dock in a larger map

I have overlaid the docs onto today's map, I positioned and traced an old aerial photo so I think it is pretty close.

HX-82 To Glasgow

The Dorelian did not hang around in Montreal leaving after four days on 16th October and arriving at Syndey on 20th. On 21st June it joined convoy HX-82 home.

Convoy HX-82 comprised around 40 merchant ships, four ships had to abandon their voyage due to weather damage, steering failure or lack of speed. Another four ships straggled from the convoy and two of these were found by U-124.

On 31st October the Rutland was hit by torpedo and sank within 30 seconds with the loss of all 24 crew. It was carrying bananas! 24 men risked and lost their lives trying to get the bananas through! On 1st November the Empire Bison was sunk with the loss of 31 or the 36 crew. (U-124 was itself sunk on 2nd April 1943 with the loss of all 53 crew.)

The Dorelian with Alister was held at Kames Bay from 4th to 7th November finally arriving in Glasgow on 7th to complete the voyage.


View Convoy HX-82 in a larger map