Alexander Hall & Company
The Alexander Hall & Company shipyard was a shipbuilding company in Aberdeen .
history
The company's founder, Alexander Hall, first completed his apprenticeship at the Cochar & Gibbon shipyard and later became a partner there. In 1790 he took over the business completely, but continued it under his own name. The shipyard initially built wooden sailing ships. In 1839 the schooner Scottish Maid was the first ship with the shipyard-typical Aberdeen or clipper stem, the shape of which was intended to improve sea behavior and the attainable speed.
After the death of Alexander Hall in 1849, his sons James and William continued the business. While James took over the actual management, William was responsible for the construction and design of the ships. During these years, the shipyard made a name for itself for its clippers , which were successfully used in the tea and opium trade. In 1846, the Hall's Dockyard Sick and Medical Fund introduced health care for shipyard workers.
During the construction of the corvette Jho Sho Maru for the Japanese Navy in 1868, a fire broke out in the shipyard, during which James Hall died of a heart attack.
In 1887 the first steam engine was built at the shipyard for the Petrel launch and the following year the construction of trawlers began . In the following decades, numerous other trawlers, coastal freighters, tugs and dredgers followed. During the Second World War alone, 26 steam tugs were built for the Admiralty . In the years from 1945 to 1957, the company missed the switch to contemporary production methods and was therefore taken over by competitor Hall, Russell & Company in 1957 .