Viaduct Shipping

Taken at Sutton Weaver on Sutton Mill Quay the ship (or are they classed as boats) used to watch these boats daily running up and down the River Weaver.

James Jackson Grundy was the first of eight motor packets built for ICI and was named after the distribution manager of the Alkali Division in 1947. She is an adaptation from the last three steam lighters which ICI had commissioned between 1944 and 1946. The first of the Packets was the Experiment of 1863 and after this the sailing flats of the area were slowly displaced.

The name Packet was applied early to these vessels because unlike the sailing flats the steamers almost worked to a regular timetable, very similar to a mail packet ship.

These vessel traded around Mersey and Irish Sea waters until the mid twentieth century. From 1948-1980, she transported soda between Winnington and Wallercote works on the River Wever at Northwich and Liverpool and Birkenhead docks. In 1980, she was bought as a training vessel for the Northwich Sea Cadets and continued in this role until she was sold to her current owner in 2001.

In 2010 she was returned to daily use carrying wheat cargoes from Liverpool to Sutton Mill Quay, Frodsham, River Weaver.