Graham Lindsay was born in Birmingham July 1921 and with his younger late brother was raised in a Quaker family. He embarked on an engineering career which culminated working at Harwell in charge of one of the sites Nuclear Reactors. He was a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. On retirement he married Janet Barker who he had know for a very long time; sadly Janet died a year later.

From early childhood Graham had an interest in boats and ships of all kinds, Graham’s particular forte however was the steam launch. In his research work, attention to accuracy and detail was almost obsessive. He loved pouring over drawings and photographs of historic launches; he knew all the boat yards along the River Thames. As a result Graham was able to contribute much to Raymond Wheeler’s two splendid books covering the history of the Saunders business.
Unfortunately Graham was extremely short sighted and because of this depended heavily on public transport. Despite this handicap he often visited boatyards involved with any restoration or classic boat building project and he loved to discuss boating details with the restorers.

He rescued the 1874 Thornycroft steam launch Eva which was restored to steam in 1987. Eva is now on display at the River and Rowing Museum in Henley. Graham was greatly disappointed when he learnt that Eva after being taken over by the museum would never come out or be steamed again. He had taken such great effort to ensure that the installation was in full working condition.

Graham rescued Consuta in 1975 and he worked on the restoration, culminating with the formation of The Consuta Trust in 1998. He was delighted and proud of the way in which Trust supporters had managed to complete the restoration and have steam Consuta at so many Thames events.

Probably his greatest ambition was that the River Thames could one day have it’s own Heritage Museum representing the story of navigation on the river with a centre piece of historic boats on display, afloat in the water and being used.
Graham would spent a lot of time on the telephone, and if you were on his list, there would be regular hour long discussions usually covering some engineering or boating topic.Graham was a charming gentleman, and he will be sadly missed by all who knew him.

Brian Smith 6th November 2004