Grangemouth Dockyard Co
The Grangemouth Dockyard Company was a Scottish company which was based initially in Canal Street on the river Carron in Grangemouth. The company mainly made passenger liners and cargo ships.
1885 The company was owned by William Millar and Samuel Pophouse Jackson, who purchased the yard in 1885.
1888 Acquired two yards in Alloa and Ardrossan.
1893 'The estates of the Grangemouth Dockyard Company carrying on business as Shipbuilders, at Grangemouth and Alloa, and William Millar and Alexander Spence, Shipbuilders there, the individual Partners thereof, as such, and as Individuals, were sequestrated on the 23rd day of January, 1893, by the Court of Session'[1]
1900 Acquired the Mid-Cartsdyke yard in Greenock from Russell and Co. The company was re-named the Grangemouth and Greenock Dockyard Co in order to emphasise the longer berths of its Clydeside yard.
1900s The yard built a number of coastal liners, colliers, along with tramps for British, South African and Indian companies.
1908 the company was incorporated as the Greenock and Grangemouth Dockyard Co Ltd.
1918 the Mid-Cartsdyke Yard (Greenock) yard was sold to Cayzer, Irvine and Co Ltd and the company re-named the Grangemouth Dockyard Co Ltd.
1920s The company mainly built for British shipowners. However in the late 20s, it also built ships for Australian and Indian companies.
1930s The yard managed to survive the depression due to repair work
1936 Restarted shipbuilding.
WWII The main output was colliers and coastal tankers: thirteen standard class colliers, twelve "Empire Cadet" class coastal tankers, along with three larger tankers, three coasters, and three standard "B" type coasters.
1950s The main customer of the yard in the post-war years was Fred Everard and George Gibson whose trademark Everard "Yellow Perils" were made by Grangemouth. This, alongside regular work for companies around the world for a variety of vessels ('flat-iron' colliers, ferries, tugs, refrigerated vessels, passenger liners and so on) kept the yard solvent for much of the 50s.
1961 Shipbuilders and repairers. 800 employees.[2]
1967 The yard was sold by the Millar family to Swan Hunter and it became part of their small ships division.
1972 Swan Hunter decided to end small ship production and the last ship from the Grangemouth yard was the Fleetwood trawler Irvana; the yard concentrated on repairs.
Became a British Shipbuilders subsidiary after nationalisation.
1984 The Grangemouth yard had concentrated on repair work, but it was sold privately in 1984 to its Managing Director and two comrades.
The yard closed in 1985.
1987 Company went into liquidation
Note:
Grangemouth Dockyard Company built ships from 1885 to 1972. The photographic collection was commissioned by the company to record most of their ships. Most are views of individual ships at sea, but there are also some photographs of the ships under construction, ships being launched and some detailed photographs of workers building the ships. These records are held by Falkirk Council
See Also
Sources of Information
- British Shipbuilding Yards. 3 vols by Norman L. Middlemiss
- [1] Falkirk Council