Industries
John Brown
By Ian Johnston
Clydebank shipyard, for a time known as John Brown & Co, was probably the most significant shipyard in the world. From its slipways were launched more internationally important vessels than from any other yard.
Origins
The shipyard had its origins in the Finnieston area of Glasgow in 1847, when two brothers, James and George Thomson, established a marine engine-building business at the Clyde Bank Foundry. Both James and George had worked under the pioneering engineer and entrepreneur, Robert Napier, who did much to introduce marine engineering and iron shipbuilding to the Clyde. James and George earned a reputation for building reliable steam engines and by 1851 they decided to expand the business by setting up a shipyard at Bankton to the east of Govan where they laid out a shipyard covering 5 acres.
The Clyde Bank Iron Shipyard earned a reputation for building well-appointed passenger vessels, many for the Cunard line. However, in 1863 the brothers quarrelled and James left the business to establish his own marine engineering works. George carried on but died in 1866 at the age of 55. A trust was created to manage the business until such times as George's two sons, James Rodger and George Paul, were of an age to take over.
When James Rodger Thomson came of age, he foresaw that larger premises similar to those recently established by John Elder at the Fairfield Works would be essential if the company were to continue building the larger ships now demanded. Impetus was added when the Clyde Navigation Trust, the managing port authority, placed a compulsory purchase order on the yard to make way for new quays.
Clydebank
In 1871, 32 acres of farmland were acquired for a new yard at Barns of Clyde diagonally opposite the mouth of the River Cart. The shipyard was transferred from Govan bringing with it the name Clyde Bank later to be taken for the town that would grow around the yard. Difficult years followed partly because of the isolated position of the yard, lack of any nearby facilities and the need to take newly launched hulls up river to the Finnieston works to have engines fitted. Nevertheless, during these years, Thomson built large, impressive liners including Servia and City of New York. Over time, the firm won highly profitable contracts for warships.
John Brown & Co
By the end of the 19th Century, the Clydebank Works were transformed into a profitable, integrated marine engineering and shipbuilding works building large ocean liners and warships. In 1899 the works were taken over by John Brown & Co, the Sheffield forgemasters and armour plate makers, eager to extend into shipbuilding. This was fortuitous timing as the deteriorating political relationship between Britain and Germany, manifest in the so-called "Naval Race", ensured a large number of warship contracts for Clydebank.
During the first decade of the 20th century, the company also succeeded in placing itself at the forefront of marine engineering technology through development of the Brown-Curtis turbine, the propelling machinery chosen by the Royal Navy for many of its major warships. Key consultancy work was also secured as shipbuilding advisors to the Russian Navy.
By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the quality of John Brown & Co's marine engineering and shipbuilding ensured the absolute confidence of two of the world's leading maritime organisations, the Cunard Steamship Company and the Royal Navy. Since the take-over by John Brown & Co, many remarkable vessels had been built including Lusitania and Aquitania for Cunard and the capital ships Inflexible, Australia, Tiger, Barham, Repulse and Hood, the last-mentioned being the epitome of British maritime power.
The Queens
The post-war cessation of naval work hit John Brown & Co badly. When mercantile orders also came under pressure through the onset of the 1920s depression, work became scarce. After the completion of the liner Empress of Britain, Clydebank faced a serious gap in its order book. In 1930 however, the contract was signed for the Cunard liner Queen Mary, known by its yard number 534. However, Cunard's inability to raise financial guarantees brought work on this ship to a standstill one year later. In 1934, after two and a half years of inactivity and acute unemployment in Clydebank, work restarted on Queen Mary. Such was the importance of this contract that it was widely interpreted as the symbol of Britain emerging from depression.
The Queen Mary was followed by her larger sister Queen Elizabeth, the order for which was placed in 1936. By then rearmament had begun in earnest and a flood of naval orders came to Clydebank. During the Second World War, Clydebank produced a veritable fleet including the battleships Duke of York, Vanguard, and the aircraft carrier Indefatigable as well as many cruisers and destroyers. The blitz of March 1941 brought devastation to the people and town of Clydebank but left the yard barely touched.
Decline
The immediate post war period saw a severe reduction in warship orders which was balanced by a prolonged boom in merchant shipbuilding. By the end of the 1950s, however, the rise of other shipbuilding nations, recapitalised and highly productive, made many British yards uncompetitive. At Clydebank, a series of loss-making contracts were booked in the hope of weathering the storm. By the mid 1960s, John Brown & Co, warned that its shipyard was uneconomic and potentially faced closure.
There would be one last triumph in the form of the Cunard liner QE2 launched in 1967. As this ship neared completion, the shipyard was incorporated into Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in a Government-sponsored attempt to strengthen the yards on the upper Clyde through new facilities and increased productivity. This would prove to be a forlorn hope and in 1971 UCS went into liquidation. The shipyard would remain in business until 2001 building oil rigs and modules for oil exploration, firstly as Marathon Shipbuilding and then as UiE. It last ship, Alisa, left the yard in 1972 bringing to a close a remarkable 101 years of shipbuilding at Clydebank.