3-053-644 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Shah's visit to the West India Dock, 1873. The Shah of Persia in London 'The river [Thames] was crowded with ships, barges, boats, and vessels of many different kinds...Opposite the entrance to the West India Dock lay five of the floating steam fire-engines of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, under the orders of Captain Shaw. They were closely lashed together in a line, and upon the deck of each stood the firemen, with the hose-pipes ready for a discharge. The word was given, and they all at once saluted the Shah with several hundred jets of water, thrown horizontally against the sides of the Princess Alice steam-boat, after which they cast up as many perpendicular jets to a great height in the air, with a very fine effect. The steam-boat conveying his Majesty and the Princes entered the West India Dock by the Mill wall gates, where the 26th Middlesex Volunteers formed a guard of honour...All the decks, rigging, and yards of the ships, and the ground and buildings around the dock, swarmed with an immense multitude of sightseers, amongst whom were foreign sailors of every nation. The Shah was more astonished by this scene than by anything else'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.