Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

Registered UK Charity (No. 115342)

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 162,258 pages of information and 244,499 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

C. J. Mare and Co

From Graces Guide
70-ton sheer legs

Charles John Mare and Co, Ship builders of Orchard Yard, Bow Creek, Blackwall

1846 Thomas Joseph Ditchburn retired from Ditchburn and Mare; Charles John Mare extended the works to the west side of Bow Creek, laying down plant for making iron, to take advantage of the availability of the best London "scrap".

The first vessel laid down at the new yard was HMS Vulcan.

Later came the Himalaya and the Blenheim

Built the ironwork for the Britannia Bridge.

1852 Charles John Mare and Co, iron and wood ship and steam boat builders, Orchard Yard, Bow Creek, Blackwall[1]. Also manufacturers of scrap iron forgings, wrought iron girders, iron and brass castings of the "largest descriptions", of the same company at the same address.

1856 Made 70-ton sheer legs for Victoria Dock (London), designed by Robert Mallet. The legs, approximately 100 ft long, were of tubular section, made from wrought iron boiler plate, instead of the traditional wooden construction [2]

1856 Subscribed £100 to the Smith Testimonial Fund, commemorating the work of F. P. Smith in promoting the screw propeller.

1856 The works employed 3,000 - 4,000 men but came to an end in 1856 when they took a contract for a low price to supply gun-boats and became insolvent.

c.1856-7 Joseph Westwood and Robert Baillie were foreman at C. J. Mare and Co. Baillie and Westwood set up in business as shipbuilders, boilermakers and ironworkers Westwood, Baillie and Co in partnership with James Campbell, in a new yard, London Yard, at Cubitt Town. [3]

1857 The insolvent firm was taken over by Charles Mare's father-in-law Peter Rolt and reformed as the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Co

1858 Mare formed the Millwall Iron and Shipbuilding Co

See Also

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Sources of Information

  1. Post Office London Directory (Small Edition), 1852
  2. 'The Engineer' 31st October 1856
  3. [1] British History Online