Ginger the Cart Horse

Ginger is a reminder of the cart horses that were used in the shipyards and would have been a common sight when the Greenock harbours were filled with ships from every sugar-growing region of the world. A colossal effort of simple horse power was required by the carters and their horses to pull the raw beet to the factories and then bring the finished product back to the docks. It may have been the vision of these labouring horses which gave James Watt the initial notion and incentive to find a more efficient means of replacing raw “horse power” by his steam engine.

Before steam, the horse was more than a simple machine for moving goods. Good carters cherished their horses and treated them kindly, as a good work horse represented the means of ensuring a regular income, so it was in the owners’ interest to ensure that the animal was well fed, sheltered and shown love and appreciation. 


Ginger’s name came from a cart horse that drowned on 23 October 1889 in the old Albert Harbour. Ginger’s death and the reaction of its loving inconsolable owner, weeping and clinging to the dead horse’s neck lying on the quayside, was witnessed by the queue waiting to embark on the steamship taking them to a new life in America.