Palmer's Shipbuilding and Iron Company

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Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited
legal form Limited
founding 1852
resolution 1935
Seat Jarrow , north east England
Branch shipbuilding

The Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited , often briefly called Palmers, existed from 1852 to 1935 in Jarrow , North East England on the south bank of the River Tyne . Numerous well-known ships were built at Palmers, who introduced a number of innovations in shipbuilding.

history

The first years

The shipbuilding company Palmer Brothers and Company was founded in 1852 by Charles Mark Palmer and his older brother George to build steam necklaces for the coal trip to London. The Carr-Ellison brothers from Hebburn leased the yard. Before founding the shipyard, Charles worked for his father, a successful businessman and shipowner from South Shields . In 1847 he became a business partner of the coal company John Bowes and Partners and then went into shipbuilding to move coal from the area faster and more economically. The first ship was the paddle steam tug Northumberland, launched in the year it was founded . On June 30th of the same year, the Palmers' first ocean-going ship was launched, the screw-driven collier John Bowes , named after his business partner in coal mining. The John Bowes was the first modern bulk carrier and later had an extremely long and successful career before being stranded as the Spanish Villa Selgas in 1933 . Another 25 necklaces with 12,210 space tons followed in the next two years. In 1853, Palmer began to manufacture marine machinery and from 1854 the company produced the first rolled steel for armoring warships. The shipyard's first warship was the Monitor HMS Terror , which was supposed to destroy Russian fortresses in Kronstadt . After the Terror was completed in 1856, Palmers became an important supplier to the Royal Navy. In addition to 20 large warships, the shipyard manufactured numerous torpedo boat destroyers.

expansion

In 1860 the shipyard's output had risen to around 22,000 tonnes of volume. To secure supplies of coal and iron ore to his company, Charles Palmer acquired 14 coal mines in County Durham and leased land in North Yorkshire on which he founded the Grindle Park Mining Company. Palmer built the port of Port Mulgrave near Staithes to ship raw materials mainly iron ore to Jarrow and also took a stake in the Tyne Plate Glass Company and the Bede Metal Company to equip his ships with fittings and copper. Also in 1860 the shipyard in Howdon, last used by Charles Mitchell , was taken over on the opposite bank, where a large part of the newbuildings were subsequently built. The following year, Palmer was able to win an order from the Italian government to build mail ships. In August 1863, Charles Mark Palmer was able to record four launches in one month and set the highest mark set by Charles Mitchell in Low Walker in 1856, but whose three launches took place in just one day. From 1863 to 1873, Palmer and White Star Line founder Thomas Ismay played a key role in building the National Line.

In 1865 the company was converted to the Palmers Shipbuilding & Iron Co. Ltd stock corporation with construction sites in Jarrow and Willington Quay. The majority of the shares were in the hands of Manchester companies and families and Palmer became chairman and managing director. In the years 1872 to 1874, the Vaderland , Nederland and Switzerland were built for the Red Star Line shipping company, the first ships with double bottoms for mutual use as ballast and oil tanks.

In 1870 Charles Palmer had the Palmer Memorial Hospital built for the shipyard staff . A bronze statue erected after Palmer's death in 1903 was initially placed on the hospital grounds, but later placed directly on the river bank in Jarrow. Charles Mark Palmer was elected to Parliament for North Durham in 1874 and Mayor in 1875. In the same year his brother George retired and Charles continued to run the business. The year 1883 was a high point in Palmer's shipyard history: 33 ships were built, 15 of them in Howdon. In the following year, in addition to a number of trampers, coastal steamers and liner ships, five sailing ships are also built. Only three years later, in 1886, the shipyard's construction list was dominated by tanker construction. Several ship models are exhibited at the Paris World Exhibition in May 1889. As a token of appreciation for Sir Charles Mark Palmer, the last of a series of trampers from the Hall Brothers shipping company was named Lady Palmer in October of the same year . After the shipyard suffered losses of around £ 33,000 in 1890/91, the 71 year old Sir Charles withdrew from the company. At the world exhibition in Antwerp in 1894, the shipyard showed not only ship models, but also a model of a triple expansion steam engine with 1100 horsepower and received a certificate of honor for metal production.

War, crisis and closure

Launch of the battle cruiser HMS Queen Mary (with the cable crane system in the picture)

Until 1906, the company held second place among the shipyards in North East England based on the volume of new construction. Also in 1906 the shipyard put an electric cable crane system with elliptical portal girders into operation, which considerably accelerated shipbuilding. After Sir Charles Palmer's shares had been acquired in 1910 by Lord Christopher Furness ( Furness, Withy & Co. ), he took over the position of CEO and in 1911 also leased the Robert Stephenson and Company shipyard in Hebburn for commercial shipbuilding . This has seven newbuildings and the largest dry dock in the north-east of Great Britain. In 1912 Palmers acquired the Stephenson shipyard and closed the Howdon shipyard.

During the First World War, Palmers built a battleship, a cruiser, three monitors and two submarines.

In 1922, Palmers acquired the small shipyard Amble Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. in Amble ( Northumberland ) and a large dry dock in Swansea began to operate. Numerous liner freighters were built at the Amble Shipbuilding yard, many of which were powered by turbine drives with turbine sets designed by Amble. In April 1923 Palmers completed the Faraday cable layer . The focus of shipbuilding production in the years 1921 to 1930 was on tank construction with over 50 units. With the delivery of the tanker Beaconstreet in July 1927, Palmers built her first ship based on the Isherwood system . Exactly one year later, on July 17, 1928, in the presence of the Queen Mother, the shipyard launched the largest new warship after the war, the HMS York . Another two years later, on July 24, 1930, the 1000th ship was launched at Palmers with the tanker Peter Hurll . After the last merchant ship with the tanker British Strength was delivered on April 28, 1931 , the destroyer Duchess ran into the water on July 19, 1932 at the very last launching of the shipyard. When it was completed in 1933, the National Shipbuilders Security acquired the shipyard and closed it, resulting in demonstrations such as the Jarrow March . It opened for another 18 months at the instigation of the High Sheriff of Surrey, Sir John Jarvis, but then Palmers was finally closed in 1935 and canceled. Vickers-Armstrong bought the dry dock in Hebburn and operated it as a ship repair company under the name Palmers (Hebburn) Limited . In 1973 Vickers-Armstrongs sold the Palmers Dock to Swan Hunter , who expanded it into the Hebburn Shipbuilding Dock . In the course of Swan Hunter's first bankruptcy in 1994, it came into the hands of Tyne Tees Dockyard Limited , which passed it on to the A&P Group a year later . This still operates the dock today.

In total, over 1000 ships were built at the shipyard. 104 of these were warships commissioned by the British government, including twelve battleships, eleven cruisers and 48 destroyers.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Stopford: Maritime Economics . 2nd Edition. Routledge, Oxon, New York 1997, ISBN 0-415-15310-7 , pp. 19/20 .