View of Rhu with the Comet steamship on the River Clyde, Dumbartonshire

The steamship in the picture is the Comet, designed by Henry Bell (1767-1830), the inventor of steam navigation. Built in 1812, the Comet, a thirty-ton boat driven by an engine of three-horse power, travelled from Glasgow to Greenock and was the first steamship which regularly worked on any European river. Bell died at Helensburgh in 1830 and is buried in the churchyard at Rhu.