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John Brown & Company

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John Brown and Company of Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, was a pre-eminent shipbuilder, responsible for building many notable ships.

Contents

Origins

The shipyard was founded by the James and George Thomson, brothers who had worked for the famous engineer Robert Napier. The Thomson brothers named the yard J&G Thomson after their Glasgow foundry, established in Anderston in 1847. In 1851 they opened a shipyard at Cessnock, launching their first ship, the Jackal in 1852. They quickly established a reputation in building prestiguous passenger ships, building the Jura for Cunard in 1854 and the record breaking Russia in 1867.

The company moved to the Barns o' Clyde (later re-named Clydebank) near the village of Dalmuir in 1871. The location at the confluence of the River Clyde, with the tributary River Cart at Newshot Isle, allowed very large ships to be launched. Despite severe financial difficulties the company developed a reputation based on engineering quality and innovation.

Golden Age

HMS Hood
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HMS Hood

John Brown and Company, a Sheffield steel-maker took over the yard in 1899, and it became one of the leading shipbuilding yards in the world. Many notable warships and liners were built here including:

Interwar recession

RMS Queen Mary arriving in New York Harbor, June 20, 1945, with thousands of U.S. troops.
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RMS Queen Mary arriving in New York Harbor, June 20, 1945, with thousands of U.S. troops.

The end of the war, and the subsequent famine of naval orders hit British shipbuilding extremely hard, and John Brown only just survived. Two great ships saved the yard, they were the giant Cunard Liners:

World War II and After

The yard made a valuable contribution to the war effort, building amongst others: 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 European 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.

The last passenger liner order came from Cunard with RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, but the yard had since merged into Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, which collapsed amidst much controversy in 1971. The last true ship to be built at the yard, the bulk grain carrier, Alisa, was completed in 1972. The Clydebank facility continued to operate under various owners until 2001, constructing oil platforms in support of the North Sea oil fields. The commercially successful John Brown Engineering division of the company, which manufactured gas turbines, was acquired by Trafalgar House (later Kvaerner), but was also eventually closed in 2001, after it's parent company failed to secure a deal with General Electric.

Regeneration of the site

A comprehensive regeneration plan for the site is currently being implemented by West Dunbartonshire Council and Scottish Enterprise. The masterplan is based around making the Clydebank waterfront more accessible to the public, and the plans include; restoring the historic Titan Crane originally designed by Sir William Arrol for the Clyde shipyard, the construction of a new campus for a local college, improved infrastructure, modern offices and a light industrial estate, new housing, retail and leisure facilities, and even more ambitious proposals mooted for the eventual return of the QE2 to the river of her birth when she is retired as a landmark tourist attraction, in a similar arrangement to an older Cunarder, the RMS Queen Mary at Long Beach, California.

Other notable ships built by John Brown and Company

HMY Britannia at pierhead on the River Mersey, Liverpool.
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HMY Britannia at pierhead on the River Mersey, Liverpool.

References

 

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