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Abstract
This article considers the largely neglected topic of greenfield shipyards and modernization in British shipbuilding from 1900 to 1977. Post-1945, the end of the long-seller’s market for shipbuilders in 1958 ushered in a sustained period of intense international competition just as spatially limited British shipbuilding firms had begun, rather late in the day, to modernize their yards in an attempt to compete with more capital intensive-orientated and less spatially constrained shipyards in Japan and Sweden, and later, South Korea. Government then played an increasing role in modernizing the industry through grants and loans during the 1960s and early 1970s, but the industry continued to struggle, particularly three large firms engaged in VLCC construction before and after the OPEC oil price hikes in 1973-74 and thereafter to nationalization of the industry in 1977.
Notes
1 Industrial location theory lies at the boundaries of economics and geography. See Lindberg and Todd, Anglo-American Shipbuilding, 1–36. We thank the anonymous referees for their comments.
2 Walker, Song of the Clyde; Clarke, Shipbuilding on the North East Coast.
3 Borthwick, Yarrow and Company, 30-31.
4 Glasgow University Archives (hereafter GUA); UGD 266, Yarrow Ship List, Yard No.1260. Borthwick, Yarrow and Company, does not give details, or a description of the yard.
5 The Tranmere Development Co., Ltd was formed in conjunction with the small shipyard of John Jones whose share was bought out in 1909. Warren, Steel, Ships and Men, 163.
6 Scott, Vickers: A history, 49.
7 Johnston, Beardmore Built.15. For Beardmore’s other substantial industrial activities, see, Hume and Moss, Beardmore.
8 Walker, Song of the Clyde, 167.
9 Johnston and Buxton, The Battleship Builders, 139–42. A Queen Elizabeth class battleship.
10 Murphy, ‘Labour in British Shipbuilding’, 51–3.
11 Johnston, Beardmore, 152–3. HMS Benbow (Iron Duke-class), laid down May 1912, launched Dec. 1913, and HMS Ramillies (Royal Sovereign-class), laid down, Nov. 1913, launched Oct. 1916.
12 Slaven, ‘Modern British Shipbuilding’, 9. By 1912 of the publicly quoted firms, four had share capital in excess of £2 million, with the largest being Vickers at £5.2 million. On the Forth, five main yards were partnerships, the largest being Ramage and Ferguson at Leith.
13 For the National Shipyards, see, Murphy. ‘The British Shipbuilding Industry during the Great War’, 44–7, 49–53, and Firth and Murphy, ‘Chepstow’s standard shipbuilding yards’, 97–113.
14 Furness was incorporated as a limited company in 1917, Burntisland in 1918 and Blythswood in 1919.
15 For the British Tanker Company Ltd, the shipping arm of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
16 O’Hara, Ironfighters, Outfitters and Bowler Hatters, 119.
17 Boyce, The Growth and Dissolution of a Large-Scale Business Enterprise, 206–7.
18 Ayre, A Shipbuilder’s Yesterdays.
19 Both Monmouth and Fairfield were owned by the speculative Sperling Combine’s acquisition vehicle, the Northumberland Shipbuilding Company of Howden on Tyne. Daiper, ‘The Sperling Combine’, 71–94; Murphy, ‘An Anatomy of Speculative Failure’, 58–73.
20 Tyne and Wear Archives: DS SH/2/7/5 Agreement with Egis Shipyard Ltd regarding a small plot of land belonging to Short Brothers at Pallion.
21 Middlemiss, British Shipbuilding Yards, vol. 3, 60–2.
22 Moss and Hume, Shipbuilders to the World, 198, 220.
23 Unless otherwise stated tonnage figures are from Lloyd’s Register of Shipping Annual Summaries. Gross tons are a measure of the enclosed volume of a ship expressed in units of 100 cubic feet.
24 Warren, Armstrongs of Elswick, 214–48; Clarke, Shipbuilding on the North East Coast, vol. 2, 221–2.
25 Johnman and Murphy, ‘An Overview of the Economic and Social Effects’, 244–6. Clarke, Shipbuilding on the North East Coast, vol. 2, 258.
26 Slaven, ‘Self-Liquidation’; Slaven, British Shipbuilding, 96–103.
27 Hume and Moss, Beardmore, 198–216.
28 Wilkinson, The Town that was Murdered.
29 Johnman and Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the State, 63.
30 Johnman and Murphy, ‘The British Merchant Ship Mission to the United States’, 1–15. The two shipyards were eventually sold to the US Maritime Commission at a net loss of £750,000. The Canadian yards were Burrard Dry Dock, North Vancouver, Canadian Vickers, Montreal and Davie Shipbuilding at Lauzon, each with six ships. Pritchard, A Bridge of Ships, 30.
31 Elphick, Liberty: The Ships that won the war.
32 National Maritime Museum: Shipbuilders and Repairers National Association papers, NMM SRNA 7, Shipbuilding Conference, Report of a General Meeting held on 2 October 1942.
33 Figure of £350,000 given in Clarke, Building Ships on the North East Coast, 358.
34 Lindberg and Todd, Anglo-American Shipbuilding, 106.
35 Ibid., 155.
36 The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA): ADM 1/1198 Labour in Naval and Mercantile Shipyards, Report by Mr Robert Barlow to the Minister of Labour, Jul. 1942, and TNA BT 28/319 Report to the Machine Tool Controller on the Re-equipment of Shipyards and Marine Engineering Shops by Mr Cecil Bentham, Sep. 1942. Of shipyard development schemes, the Admiralty paid just over £5 million of the near £7 million cost of the costs of the schemes. Johnman and Murphy, British Shipbuilidng and the State, 83.
37 Barnett, Audit of War, 119.
38 Murphy, ‘Labour in the British Shipbuilding Industry’, 114.
39 Slaven, British Shipbuilding, 124.
40 Middlemiss, British Shipbuilding Yards, vol. 3, 190.
41 Slaven, British Shipbuilding, 124.
42 Letter from McNeil to Lord Hailsham, Apr. 1957, cited in Johnman and Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the State, 112.
43 O’Hara, Ironfighters, Outfitters and Bowler Hatters, 119. Blythswood for example spent a minimum amount on modernization, and its completed ships had significant amounts of riveting throughout the 1950s.
44 Lane, Ships for Victory.
45 For Ludwig, see Davies, ‘The Role of National Bulk Carriers’, 131–42. For Japanese shipping and shipbuilding generally, see Chida and Davies, The Japanese Shipping and Shipbuilding Industries.
46 Todd, Industrial Dislocation, 14–15.
47 Ibid, quoting tonnage figures taken from Far Eastern Economic Review, 26 Feb. 1973, 10.
48 Ibid, citing Far Eastern Economic Review, 31 Oct. 1968, 248.
49 Olsson, ‘Big Business in Sweden’, 310–38.
50 Jones, Shipbuilding in Britain, 76, 102–4. See also, Johnman and Murphy, ‘The Norwegian Market for British Shipbuilding’, 55–78 and Murphy, ‘“We do not want to be too hard on the Norwegians”’, 450–63.
51 Nielsen, ‘A New Concept of Shipbuilding’, 116–17.
52 The Motor Ship, Jun. 1963, 116.
53 Svensson, ‘Designing a Modern Swedish Yard’, 118.
54 Ibid., 119.
55 Ibid, 119–20.
56 Todd, Industrial Dislocation, 16.
57 Lloyd’s List, 29 Apr. 1964.
58 Borthwick, Yarrow and Company, 96. Lloyd’s List, 10 Sep. 1962. The scheme was completed in 1964.
59 Lloyd’s List, 23 Dec. 1961.
60 The Motor Ship, Jul. 1961, 154-5.
61 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Research and Development Requirements of the Shipbuilding Industry.
62 For the formation of BSRA, see, Murphy, ‘Research Organisations in British Shipbuilding’, 18-20.
63 Productivity and Research in Shipbuilding. Report of the Main Committee under the chairmanship of Mr James Patton O.B.E. to the Joint Industry Committee, 12 February 1962.
64 Johnman and Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the State, 141.
65 Lloyd’s List, 31 Oct. 1963.
66 For the surviving records of these firms, see, Ritchie, The Shipbuilding Industry. The Blythswood site was acquired by Yarrow and repurposed for warship construction in two covered berths and a module assembly hall.
67 Johnman and Murphy, ‘Welding and the British Shipbuilding Industry’, 89–116.
68 Johnman and Murphy, Scott Lithgow, 94.
69 Moss and Hume, Shipbuilders to the World, 378, 381.
70 Daily Telegraph, 16 Apr. 1962.
71 Johnman and Murphy, ‘No Light at the End of the Dock’, 91–124.
72 Greenock Telegraph, 26 Dec. 1966. The output of Clyde firms was just over 304,000 gt, the lowest output since 1939 except for 1962 when the total output was just less than 262,000 gt.
73 Johnston and Murphy, ‘The Newshot Isle Project’, 207–18.
74 Johnston, Ships for a Nation, 262.
75 Companies House, John Brown and Company Limited, 102nd Report and Accounts, 31 Mar. 1966, chairman’s statement, 15–16.
76 Offer to sell, noted in The Times,10 Jun. 1969 and Aberconway’s obituary in The Independent, 5 Mar. 2003.
77 Shipbuilding Inquiry Report. See also Connors, ‘The role of government in the decline of the British shipbuilding industry’.
78 GUA: UCS 1/22/38 Letter in reply to correspondence of Geddes of 5 Jan. 1966 from Aberconway, 24 Jan. 1966.
79 Shipbuilding Inquiry Report, paragraphs 273, 97–9, 135–7, 245–9.
80 Ibid, 9.
81 Ibid, paragraphs, 274–5.
82 The Motor Ship, Mar. 1966.
83 The three members of the Board were Sir William Swallow of Vauxhall Motors, Joe Gormley of the National Union of Mineworkers and Anthony Hepper a Director of the Thomas Tilling group who had been seconded as an industrial advisor to the short-lived Department of Economic Affairs in the Wilson Labour government.
84 SIB Report and Accounts for the period 1 Apr. 1971 to 31 Dec., appendix C. These were the final accounts of the SIB and showed a total of £13,778,000 awarded to Harland & Wolff, of which £8 million was in loan and £5,778,000 in grant. Harland & Wolff also received substantial sums in grants and loans from the Northern Ireland Ministry of Commerce.
85 As a rule of thumb, a vessel over 200,000 dwt and up to 300,000 dwt is a VLCC. A tanker over 300,000 dwt is a ULCC. Harland & Wolff Ship List.
86 SIB Report and Accounts for the period of 1 Apr. to 31 Dec. 1971, 10, appendix C.
87 Ibid., appendix C.
88 Johnman and Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the State, 186. Leaving UCS prompted Sir Eric Yarrow to open the biggest bottle of Champagne of his life. Interview of Sir Eric Yarrow, by Lewis Johnman, Kilmacolm, 15 Apr. 1999. There is a large literature on UCS, and the Work-in, for example: Knox and McKinlay, Jimmy Reid; and Foster, ‘Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’, 34–48.
89 British Shipbuilding History Group project interview with Graham Day, 17 Aug. 1991.
90 TNA: FV 37/134, Barry Barker Director SIB, Notes on Cammell Laird, 24 Apr. 1970.
91 The Motor Ship, Jun. 1960, 6–9. Estimated final cost of £16.5 million cited from Journal of Commerce, 2 Oct. 1963. A fuller description of the first phase of modernization is given in Welding and Metal Fabrication, Jul. 1963, 283–93.
92 Companies House, Cammell Laird and Company Limited, Birkenhead, One Hundredth Report and Accounts, 1963, 5–8, 22–3.
93 Department of Trade and Industry, British Shipbuilding 1972, 87.
94 Hogwood, Government and Shipbuilding, 164.
95 SIB Report and Accounts for the period 1 Apr. 1971 to 31 Dec. 1971, appendix C; British Shipbuilding 1972, 179.
96 Swan Hunter Ship List.
97 Johnman and Murphy, Scott Lithgow, 216–17.
98 Kang et al., ‘Old Methods Versus New’, 433–6.
99 Scott Lithgow Ship List; Connors, ‘The Decline of British shipbuilding’, 22–40.
100 Bruno and Tenold, ‘The Basis for South Korea’s Ascent in the Shipbuilding Industry’, 201–17.
101 For the Ulsan shipyard, see, Kang et al. ‘British financial, managerial and technical assistance’, 81–101. For the South Korean economy, see, Amsden, Asia’s Next Giant.
102 Craggs, Murphy and Vaughan, ‘A Shipbuilding Consultancy is Born’,106–30.
103 Tenold, et al., ‘International transfer of tacit knowledge’.
104 Traditions of Excellence, 60–1.
105 Amsden. Asia’s Next Giant, 277.
106 Traditions of Excellence, 63–4, 67, 70. Sulzer of Winterthur, Switzerland, MAN, Augsburg, West Germany and Burmeister and Wain, Copenhagen.
107 For the oil crisis and shipbuilding, see, Murphy and Tenold, ‘The Effects of the Oil Price Shocks’, 665–4. For a fuller economic analysis with emphasis on Norway, see, Tenold, Tankers in Trouble. See also Connors, ‘The role of government in the decline of the British shipbuilding industry’.
108 Floud and McCloskey, The Economic History of Britain, 391.
109 Cairncross, The British Economy since 1945, 184. The TUC was the coordinating body for affiliated British Trade unions and held an annual conference in which trade union policies to be presented to government were voted on.
110 Kang, et al., ‘Old Methods Versus New’, 449.
111 An amalgamation of Wm Doxford & Sons, Pallion J. L. Thompson’s North Sands, and Sir James Laing’s Deptford shipyards. Department of Trade and Industry, Court Line. Final Report, paras. 247–56.
112 Craggs et al, ‘A Shipbuilding Consultancy is Born’, 117.
113 The Naval Architect, Jan. 1974 and May 1976.
114 Craggs et al., ‘A Shipbuilding Consultancy is Born’, 116.
115 Kimber and Hargroves, ‘Creating a Production Facility for Standard Ships’.
116 Craggs et al., ‘A Shipbuilding Consultancy is Born’, 114–15.
117 British Shipbuilders Annual Report and Accounts for the nine months from 1 Jul. 1977 to 31 Mar. 1978.
118 Although nationalized, Harland & Wolff remained separate from British Shipbuilders Corporation.
119 House of Commons Debates, vol. 901, cc 1454–55, 2 Dec. 1975.
120 Slaven and Murphy, Crossing the Bar, interview with Graham Day, 222.
121 Ibid., interview with Robert Atkinson, 21819.
122 Johnman and Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the State, 209. Swan Hunter posted a loss of £900,000 in 1976 after crediting £3 million in construction grants from government and made loss provisions of £6.4 million for future years.
123 Following on from the Booz-Allen Report of 1972, three firms had been designated warships yards, Vickers, Yarrow and Vosper-Thornycroft.
124 de Voogt, ‘Public intervention’, 251–2.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Hugh Murphy
Hugh Murphy is an honorary professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences based at the Centre for Business History in Scotland, University of Glasgow and Visiting Reader in Maritime History, National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich.
Rachel Blackman-Rogers
Rachel Blackman-Rogers read geography at St Peter’s College, Oxford and has an MA in the history of war from King’s College London. She is currently a PhD candidate in the War Studies Department of King’s College London.