Ferguson Shipbuilders of Port Glasgow is a shipbuilder
- 1903 The company was founded in 1903 as Ferguson Brothers when the four Ferguson brothers Peter, Daniel, Louts and Robert broke away from their Fleming and Ferguson ship yard at Paisley and set up on their own as consultants before leasing the Newark Shipyard, Port Glasgow, at £500 per year securing in March, 1903, an order from Clyde Shipping Co. Ltd. for the building of 2 steam tugs. They began building tugs, hoppers and dredgers.
- About 1907 the site was purchased from Messrs. W. Hamilton
- 1912 The company registered as a limited liability company in 1912 under the name Ferguson Brothers (Port Glasgow) Ltd.
- 1920s The yard was bought up by John Slater and the main output was cargo ships, hopper dredgers, along with an Antarctic scientific and exploration ship Discovery II. By the end of the 1920s the Ferguson’s had managed to regain control of the yard.
- 1925 See Aberconway for information on shipbuilding h.p produced in 1904 and 1925
- WWII The yard built trawlers, corvettes, boom defence vessels, naval tugs and a twin-screw suction/trailing dredger. In addition, four passenger and vehicle ferries were built for Turkey
- 1950s The yard continued making bucket and grab dredgers and variants on these carried the company through to the late 1970s.
- In 1955 Lithgow’s began their quest for full control of the yard, by initially buying a minority interest, which led to full control in 1961. The yard was now part of the Scott-Lithgow with the Ferguson Brothers displaced from any management control.
- 1961 Shipbuilders engineers and dredger builders. 500 employees.
- 1977 Fergusons was nationalised into the British Shipbuilders.
- 1980 The yard was associated with the Troon yard of Ailsa Shipbuilding Co. A full merger happened in 1983 which was then disbanded in 1986 after the Ailsa yard was sold off. The yard then merged with Appledore Shipbuilders to form Appledore-Ferguson Shipbuilders.
- In 1989 the yard was sold again by British Shipbuilders to the HLD Group under the control of Kvaerner A/S of Norway. The yard traded again as Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd.
- 1990s The yard was sold privately again, and became Ferguson Marine.
Sources of Information
- [1] Wikipedia
- British Shipbuilding Yards. 3 vols by Norman L. Middlemiss
- [2] Ferguson Shipbuilders
- 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE