Following the demise of the River Thames Steamboat Company's calls at Clacton Pier in 1887, a group of Clacton entrepreneurs -- amongst them the major shareholders of the Clacton Pier Company -- formed their own London, Woolwich & Clacton-on-Sea Steamship Company to provide services for the town. After an erratic start, the company ordered a fleet of four paddlers from Denny Bros. of Dumbarton, the first of which was the celebrated Clacton Belle. Completed in 1890 and registered at 458 tons gross (182 net), she measured 246 feet in length with a 26½ foot beam and was powered by compound diagonal 161nhp. engines manufactured by her own builders. Capable of 17 knots at full steam, she boasted a promenade deck of 142 feet and proved an immediate success upon entering service. After twenty-four successful years plying the Thames estuary, she was requisitioned, armed and fitted out as a minesweeper in 1914 and spent the Great War based first at Sheerness and then, from the autumn of 1917, at Liverpool from where she was released back to civilian duties in March 1919. Sold to a short-lived syndicate in 1921, in 1922 she was purchased by the Royal Sovereign Steamship Company which three years later sold her to the East Anglia Steam Ship Company. Retaining her original name all the while, she was by now showing her age and was sold for scrapping in 1929.