Laird Brothers

Laird Brothers was a shipbuilding company founded in 1824 in Birkenhead on the River Mersey . The shipyard merged in 1903 with Charles Cammell & Co. to form Cammell, Laird & Company .

history

The beginnings

Site plan of the old shipyard

The company was founded in 1824 by William Laird as Birkenhead Iron Works on the south bank of the Wallasey Pool and initially produced boilers . In 1828, Laird's son John entered the business and, at his suggestion , the construction of iron ships was offered, since the same techniques of bending and riveting were used. In the following year the first order from Charles Wye Williams' Irish Inland Navigation Company for a 60-ton barge was accepted, and in 1833 the paddle steamer Lady Lansdowne was built for the same company . John Laird's brother Macgregor Laird , who was also known as a human rights activist and made regular trips to the interior of Africa, opened his own shipyard in Liverpool Banks in 1832 . William Laird's first innovation was the installation of transverse bulkheads , which was first used in 1834 in the construction of the small paddle steamer Garryowen . They also began to build iron gunboats . The shipyard soon became a leader in iron shipbuilding and quickly developed propulsion technology. In 1836, the iron wheel frigate Guadeloupe was laid on its keel, at that time the largest iron ship and the first important iron-built warship in the world; it was hoped to sell the ship to the Royal Navy , but since they showed no interest it was sold to Mexico in 1841 . In 1839, the Robert F. Stockton , the first propeller-driven tug for use in North American waterways, was built, and in the following year 17 iron paddle steamers and four gunboats were built for the East India Company to ward off pirates . Due to the reputation gained in this way, Laird received the first building order from the Admiralty in 1840 to manufacture a paddle steamer for the postal service across the English Channel . The Dover convinced the Admiralty, which then gave Laird the contract to build paddle steamer frigates. One of these ships was the Birkenhead , delivered in 1848 , which was lost off South Africa in 1852 with more than 400 soldiers. Laird was also involved in the development of what was then the new town of Birkenhead and began building new docks on the tidal Wallasey Pool in 1844. These port facilities were supposed to compete with the Liverpool port, but this did not succeed, after which they were incorporated into the Liverpool Docks system in 1858. In 1852 Macgregor Laird ordered three ships, Faith , Hope and Charity , for the African Steamship Company he founded, which, after his death in 1861, was sold to Elder, Dempster and Co. and was considered the largest West Africa trading company of its time. From 1852 to 1857, an existing shipyard in south Liverpool was rented to build gunboats for use in the Crimean War (1854 to 1856).

The move

In 1857 the Laird shipyard was acquired by the Mersey Docks and Harbor Board for the construction of the Birkenhead Docks. John Laird moved to a location between Monks Ferry and Tranmere Pool, which with its five docks was known as the North Yard primarily for the large number of warships and passenger ships built here, but also for innovations in shipbuilding. Boats were made from iron cement as early as 1855, and as early as 1858 the Ma Roberts, built for David Livingstone's Zambezi expedition, was the first ship made entirely of steel from this shipyard. In the same year the mechanical engineering workshops were put into service. In 1860 ships were built for the London & North Western Railway (LNWR), which with a speed of 18 knots were long considered the fastest ships of their kind. A year later, John Laird retired from the company to become a Member of Parliament.

From the renaming to the merger

Site plan of the new shipyard

In order to document the new management of the up-and-coming shipyard by William, John and Henry after the generation change, it was renamed Laird Brothers. The first outstanding ship that was delivered under the new shipyard name was the Alabama , created in 1862 as a “fast merchant steamer” , which was first armed in the Azores and sank 55 (68?) Ships for the Confederates of their opponents from the Union of Northern States before it was sunk by the Kearsarge off Cherbourg in 1864 . In the following year Laird built two armored monitor ships for the Confederates, which were equipped with rotating turrets. However, these were confiscated as they undermined the neutrality of the United Kingdom in this conflict and put into service by the Royal Navy as HMS Scorpion and HMS Wivern . Between 1866 and 1869 three tower ships were built for the Dutch Navy, one for Peru and two more for the Royal Navy. One of these last Royal Navy constructions was the unfortunate HMS Captain , which capsized and sank just a year after its commissioning in 1869. During the 1870s, naval warships in Portugal and China and two tower ships for Argentina followed . In 1878, the Storm Cock was the first of a long line of tugs to be handed over to the Cock company. In 1882 the first passenger steamer was delivered to the Cunard Line, the Cephalonia, measured at 5,517 gross tons . Laird never built ships for the other two major English liner companies, the White Star Line and Blue Funnel Line . Pacific Steam Navigation Co , Singlehurst's Red Cross Line or Messageries Maritimes were regular customers. For these smaller shipping companies in particular, Laird developed combination ships that could transport enough cargo without relying on government subsidies for liner services . The first triple expansion composite steam engines were built for the City of Berlin in 1888 . In the 1880s and 1890s, the construction of belted armored cruisers and torpedo boat destroyers for the Royal Navy began , from which the destroyers developed from 1886 with the HMS Rattlesnake , which led to orders from the navies from Argentina, Chile , Portugal and Russia . Shortly before the turn of the century, Laird Brothers was converted to a limited company. Since the steel armor for these warships was supplied by the Sheffield metal construction company Charles Cammell & Co. , it was decided in 1903, after lengthy negotiations, to merge the two companies to form Cammell, Laird & Company . The fact that companies that were able to offer a warship "from a single source" had considerable advantages in winning newbuilding orders from the Royal Navy had a significant influence. Laird Brother built more than 270 cargo ships until the two companies merged.

Known or preserved ships from Laird Brothers

A number of well-known ships were built at Laird. These include, among other things, the Leinster sunk by a German submarine at the end of the First World War .

Some historical examples of the Laird shipbuilding in Birkenhead have been preserved. This includes the tower ship Huascar , which was built for the Peruvian Navy in 1865 and later conquered by Chile. Today it lies in the Chilean naval base Talcahuano . The corvette Uruguay , which was built in 1874 and participated in an Antarctic expedition, lies in Buenos Aires, as is the Argentine training ship Presidente Sarmiento from 1897 .

Web links

53.387951 -3.010869Coordinates: 53 ° 23 '16.6 " N , 3 ° 0' 39.1" W.

literature

Warren, Kenneth: Steel, ships and men . Liverpool University Press, Liverpool 1998, ISBN 0-85323-912-6 .
H. Clarkson & Co. Ltd. (Ed.): The Clarkson Chronicle . 1852-1952. Harley Publishing, London 1952.
Germanischer Lloyd (Ed.): International Register 1881 . Germanischer Lloyd, Berlin 1881.