More or less as in Sunday Herald 13.1.2008

 

THE CLYDE IN 1912<o:p></o:p>

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The Clyde’s decline from being the world’s greatest shipbuilding centre was a long and painful process and it may be hard today to grasp what the river once was and how it has changed. However a snapshot in time can show more than any number of statistics and reports – and 1912 presents a revealing glimpse of the Clyde at its peak. <o:p></o:p>

1912 was the centenary of Henry Bell’s pioneering steamer Comet – the first commercial steamship in Europe, a ship seen as the foundation of the Clyde’s reputation in shipbuilding and marine engineering – celebration was in order. Talks were given, banquets eaten, exhibitions held and the great and the good of Glasgow and the West of Scotland sailed on Saturday 31^st August from the Broomielaw down to Greenock on MacBrayne’s steamer Columba to inspect a great display of warships, merchant shipping and pleasure craft at the Tail of the Bank. Nor were the men who built the ships forgotten, representatives of the shipwrights, engineers, boilermakers and other trades followed on in the Glasgow Corporation sewage sludge ship Shieldhall.<o:p></o:p>

The Comet Centenary souvenir book listed the shipyards that the passengers would see as they sailed down river. Thirty yards – including such world famous names as Harland & Wolff and Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Govan; John Brown at Clydebank, William Denny at Dumbarton and Scott & Co at Greenock– were in production and 175 vessels were on that day building or fitting out along the banks of the Clyde, with nine ships having been launched in August. Not for nothing had the Scottish novelist Neil Munro a few years earlier described the Clyde as “a ship shop.”<o:p></o:p>

The Columba’s passengers would see an amazing range of ships on their cruise.  Harland & Wolff had just launched the cruiser Sydney for the Royal Australian Navy while Fairfield had launched the Empress of Russia for Canadian Pacific Railways and had another Empress liner on the stocks. Lobnitz & Co at Renfrew were working on dredgers while John Brown’s yard was busy with the battle cruiser Tiger for the Royal Navy and the gigantic liner Aquitania for Cunard and had another eight ships building or fitting out.  William Beardmore & Co Ltd at Dalmuir were building one battleship, HMS Benbow and fitting out another, HMS Conqueror, as well as having a range of commercial contracts in hand. Even a rather less prominent yard such as Russell and Co. at Port Glasgow had ten steamers under construction. <o:p></o:p>

At Whiteinch Barclay Curle had three steamers building for the British India Steam Navigation Company, Yarrow at Scotstoun were building destroyers for the Royal Navy and gunboats for Columbia, Caird at Greenock had five ships building for the P & O Line, while at Dumbarton William Denny and Brothers were turning out river steamers and barges for the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company in Burma.<o:p></o:p>

Shipowners from all round the world came to the Clyde for their needs. No matter how large or how small the contract was a Clydeside yard could deliver it. Whether it was a batch of tramp steamers or a specialist dredger that was called for there was in the Clyde the design and construction expertise and the industrial capacity to supply it, even if the very river had to be changed.  When John Brown’s took on the construction of the 901ft long aquitania the river, already widened for the Lusitania, had to be still further developed to allow what would be Britain’s largest ship to be safely launched.<o:p></o:p>

Neil Munro’s description of the Clyde as a “ship shop” was a self-evident truth – ship owners, ship builders, marine engineers and the suppliers of goods and services for the industry flourished in the area and created much employment. The Clyde produced around a fifth of the world’s ships in the years before the First World War. From the time of Bell through Robert Napier to the giant turbine powered liners and battleships of 1912 the Clyde had been at the centre of technical development. Clyde ships and the men who built them were known in all the seas of the world and the term “Clyde built” was acknowledged as a guarantee of quality.<o:p></o:p>

Brian D Osborne<o:p></o:p>

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