A black and white photograph of the Niger Company Ltd.’s ship ‘Walter Watts’

A black and white photograph of the Niger Company Ltd.’s ship ‘Walter Watts’, showing a shallow-bottomed ship , probably a paddle-steamer, in dry dock, with the name ‘Walter Watts’, written on the bow, in a silver frame inscribed ‘The Niger Company Ltd’ and ‘S.W. “Walter Watts” Launched 26^th July .1922.’  Assay marks for Birmingham 1921-1922.  English.

Walter Watts was the agent-general for the Niger Company and his diaries and correspondence for 1907-1908 are stored in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.  At the time this ship was the largest paddle-steamer on the Niger River.  The Royal Niger Company was a mercantile company formed in 1879 to trade with western and central Africa.  It was strategically important during the 1890s as it enabled the British to establish a bases from which to thwart the German Chancellor, Prince Otto von Bismark.  From 1929 the company was gradually integrated into Unilever.