Furness Shipbuilding Company
The Furness Shipbuilding Company was a shipyard in Haverton Hill on the River Tees .
history
Established in the First World War
The shipbuilding company was founded in 1917 as a subsidiary of the West Hartlepool shipping company Furness, Withy & Company . First, on a three-quarter kilometer stretch of the River Tees in Haverton Hill on the north bank across from Middlesbrough, a 34 hectare emergency shipyard with eight slipways and a 300 by 76 meter equipment port was built to meet the high tonnage requirements of the First World War. Three months after the start of construction, the first keel-laying of the ship War Energy took place in March 1918 at the still unfinished shipyard .
Interwar years
After the end of the war, Furness Shipbuilding first completed the eight government orders for N1 ships and delivered them to Belgian and Italian shipping companies, before the first civil orders were accepted from 1920. In mid-1919, the Furness family withdrew from the management of the parent company Furness, Withy, which was taken over by a management buyout , but remained in possession of the shipyard. Part of this business was construction contracts with an order volume of six million pounds, from which the shipping company received 18 tramp ships and two colliers from the Furness shipyard by mid-1925 . In addition, other colliers and tramp ships, five larger tankers and the two-masted schooner Princess were built during this time . In the second half of the 1920s, the shipyard built a number of Great Lakes ships for the transport of grain and gypsum for Canadian shipping companies . One of the ships, the Cementkarrier (1930, 1971 BRT) was the first diesel-electric ship from a shipyard in North-East England. In addition, in the late 1920s emerged two combination vessels for the Grace Line and three 14,000-ton whaling - factory ships . In the first half of the 1930s, shipbuilding almost came to a standstill due to the global economic crisis - only three coastal tankers, a general cargo ship, and a few tramp ships and necklaces were built. Notable among them was the Arctees , one of the first two Arcform ships based on the patents of Joseph Isherwood . From the mid-1930s, the economic climate improved noticeably and new orders came in. As early as 1936, eleven ships were built again, including seven freighters for the Soviet Union that were to be used on the northern sea route along the Siberian Arctic coast, lake tankers for the “Lago Shipping Company” and cargo steamers for the Palm Line . By the Second World War, a floating dock for South Africa and other lake tankers for Shell and some larger tankers followed.
Second World War
During the war years, Furness expanded its shipyard by four additional construction workers. From 1939 to 1946 the shipyard delivered ten ocean-type tankers , six Norway-type tankers, eight standard fast tankers , 16 channel tankers and two tankers for civilian account. There were also six tramp ships, four of the type PF (B) and three whale factory ships based on the design of the pre-war structures.
post war period
After the end of the war, the shipyard benefited from the experience gained in tanker construction - the order book for the following two decades therefore almost exclusively contained tankers, the size of which was constantly growing. From 1947 to 1963, 76 seagoing vessels and tankers were built. In 1951 the Furness family sold the shipyard to Charles Clore and Sears Holdings. In 1961, the Furness Shipbuilding Company employed 2,750 people.
In 1963, the shipyard was modernized and designed for the construction of ever-larger ship units, especially super tankers and bulk carriers . After the delivery of the bulk carrier Essi Gina in 1963, however, the shipyard was for the first time in its history, even if only for a short time, without a single construction contract. In 1966/67 the Staflo oil rig was built and in March 1968 the closure of the Haverton Hill shipyard was announced, which would have cost 3,000 jobs. However, Furness was taken over by Swan Hunter Shipbuilders and worked from January 1, 1969 as their Haverton Hill Shipyard and completed eleven ships. From 1971 to 1976, the shipyard delivered every year one of the six ore-bulk-oil carrier of the Bridge class from which the last unit that Liverpool Bridge under its later name of Derbyshire gained notoriety when she on September 9, 1980 south of Japan Typhoon Orchid with the entire crew sank.
In 1977 Furness merged with Swan Hunter in the state-owned British Shipbuilders Corporation . In 1979 the former Furness Shipbuilding Company was closed after 62 years. The shipyard facilities were not demolished, but initially continued to be maintained.
literature
- Norman L. Middlemiss: British Shipbuilding Yards . Volume 1: North-East Coast . 1st edition. Shield Publications, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1993, ISBN 1-871128-10-2 .
Web links
- FURNESS SHIPBUILDING COMPANY LTD., HAVERTON HILL (Eng.)
- Construction list 1919–1939
- Construction list 1940–1969
Individual evidence
- ↑ Arctees , 1934, 3953 BRT with image
- ^ Lloyd's Register Appendix 1979-80