Old Photograph Passenger Ferry William Muir Burntisland Fife Scotland

Old photograph of the passenger ferry William Muir at the pier in Burntisland, Fife, Scotland. The iron hulled paddle steamer William Muir was built at the yard of J Key and Son, Kinghorn, in 1879, for the North British Railway Company to provide a passenger service across the Firth of Forth from Granton Harbour in Edinburgh to Burntisland in Fife. She was named after the Chairman of the North British Railway. The William Muir had accommodation for 707 passengers. There were many occasions on which her capacity was thoroughly utilised. Possibly the biggest transport job in the history of the ferry was the shipment from one side of the Forth to the other of Lord George Sanger's circus and menagerie consisting of fifty caravans and 500 horses, camels, dromedaries, elephants, and other animals. This huge undertaking was begun at 10 pm, and in six hours the entire circus establishment had been safely conveyed across the five miles of water. Difficulty was experienced in getting the large caravans across the pier, and the biggest elephant, Jumbo, was more than once pressed into duty.



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