Where was the African queen river boat built?

Answer 1

According to recent on-the-ground historical research (2009) (see www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/news/New-Stroud-canal-boat-follows-wake-Bogey-s-African-Queen/article-686448-detail/article.html),the legendary riverboat 'Queen Of Africa' which gave a star performance in the 1951 John Huston movie The African Queen was built at the Abdela & Mitchell Brimscombe works in Gloucestershire between 1908 and 1911.

The Abdela river-boats were highly-regarded for their elegance (see www.rammworldculturesonline.org.uk/Projects/Beauty-%E2%80%93-in-the-Eye-of-the-Beholder/For-Profit-and-Pleasure), shallow draft - often less than 40cm - and flexibility, viz the 'Adis Ababa' for Lt-Col John Harrington's White Nile/Ethiopia expedition of 1903 - 'boiler arranged to burn oil, coal or wood'.

Marine architect Isaac J Abdela was the proprietor of the Abdela & Mitchell shipyards when the 'Queen Of Africa' was built at Brimscombe. The Shipyards announced themselves as 'Contractors To The Admiralty, War Office, India Office And Allied Governments'.

These same yards also built luxurious river-boats with gold bath-taps for Amazon rubber barons, to the degree the yards never recovered from the blow inflicted on the Amazonian rubber industry with the arrival of man-made rubber by the 1920s. In 1925 Isaac J Abdela sold the company and retired to Harrogate and Blackpool.

Many of the river-boats went to the Nile, the Niger and other African rivers, and especially to the Peruvian Amazon and other Amazonian tributaries.

The other stars of The African Queen were Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut and Katharine Hepburn as Rose Sayer. Much of the movie was shot near Stanleyville. The location in Africa proved tricky, see Katharine Hepburn's account in 'How I Went to Africa with Bogie, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind'. Famous quotes from the movie below.

During World War One there really was a German gunboat steaming (and controlling) the lake, the Graf Goetzen. The ship, almost 70 meters long, was built in Germany and assembled on-site. The 'Louisa' in The African Queen was inspired by this ship. The historical Graf Goetzen was sunk in June 1916 by its own crew to avoid capture.

The only direct living descendant of Isaac J Abdela carrying the family name is his granddaughter Lesley Julia Abdela who lives in East Sussex, UK.