Murdoch and Murray
of Brown Street, Port Glasgow, shipbuilders
1875 Henry Murray and James Murdoch (1821-98) set up Murdoch and Murray at the Brown Street yard. They made a variety of small iron schooners and barques before moving into steel construction steamers. The yard then specialised in shallow-draft passenger/cargo steamers. Over 70 were built, along with smaller steamers and three masted schooners for companies around the world. The company was run by James Murdoch, Henry Murray, James and George Murray (Henry's sons).
Henry Murray's son, John, set up a coaster company called Murray, McNab and Co. Glasgow.
1880s The company mainly built steel tramp steamers, and then a further series of steamers for many British companies. This work largely occupied the yard up to the outbreak of WWI
1889 See 1889 Shipbuilding Statistics for detail of the tonnage produced
After James Murdoch died, Henry Murray took over running of this yard.
1895 Short period of closure during the slump of 1895.
1897 Drawings and brief description of pilot steamers constructed for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, named Francis Henderson and Leonard Spear. David Rowan and Son supplied the triple-expansion engines, having cylinders 12 in., 18 in., and 30 in. in diameter by 22 in. stroke.[1]
1909 Henry Murray retired.
1911 Murdoch and Murray Limited was incorporated as a private company, with capital of £35,000, to acquire as a going concern the business of shipbuilders carried on at Port Glasgow under the style of Murdoch & Murray.[2]
1912 the Clyde paddle steamer Queen Empress
1913 Built for Anchor Line a tender Paladin.
WWI The Company manufactured minesweepers, tugs, rescue tugs (Saint class), several trawlers, a coaster, a Russian ice breaking tug and a Mersey pilot cutter.
1918 At the end of the war the company was bought out by the London group of John Slater. The directors of the yard were James and George Murray, John Slater and his wife Mrs A. E. Slater, and took over the neighbouring yard of Ferguson Brothers
Between 1919 and 1923 the yard made seven further ships
1923 Work ran out
1926 The Port Glasgow Shipbuilding Co Ltd was incorporated to take over the business of Murdoch and Murray.[3]
The yard closed in October 1927. The yard was turned into a park and then later reused by Lithgows.
1929 Murdoch and Murray Limited went into voluntary liquidation.[4]
- In all over 250 ships were built, all small, and with a particular emphasis on shallow draft vessels.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Engineering 1897/01/08
- ↑ The Scotsman 26 August 1911
- ↑ Liverpool Journal of Commerce 27 September 1926
- ↑ https://www.thegazette.co.uk/Edinburgh/issue/14598/page/1368
- National Records of Scotland BT2/7971
- British Shipbuilding Yards. 3 vols by Norman L. Middlemiss
- The Port Glasgow Yards [1]