Robert Duncan and Company
Robert Duncan and Company was a shipyard in Port Glasgow on the Clyde in Scotland .
history
The shipbuilder Robert Duncan had already spent his previous working life in shipbuilding before he bought the East Yard shipbuilding site in Port Glasgow from John Wood in 1862 at the age of 35 to set up his own shipyard and start building iron ships. Until the 1860s he continued to build sailing ships exclusively for customers around the world. Duncan's first screw steamer was launched in 1866. Another decade later, steel began to replace iron as a shipbuilding material. In 1883 Duncan's three sons joined the company, in 1889 Robert Duncan died and the sons continued to run the yard.
In addition to large steamers and smaller tramp ships , sailing ships were also built. The best known is probably the Pass of Balmaha , the later German auxiliary cruiser SMS Seeadler . In addition, the twin-screw steam tug Flying Serpent is worth mentioning, which was built by Duncan in 1886, first converted into a trawler in 1928, later fitted with a diesel engine, and then used as a cargo ship from 1951 and only removed from the register in 1998.
For the Greek ship owner Alexandros Michalinos, for example, a whole series of tramp ships was built during this time. The last sailing ship was the Alta, which was delivered to the Chilean shipping company AP Lorentzen in 1900 .
In the First World War, liner cargo ships and trampers ran from Duncan's Hellingen. In addition, a standard type "C" freighter and three standard "Z" tankers were built. Early on during the war, in 1915, the shipbuilding company Lithgows took over the Duncan shipyard, but continued to operate under its old name.
After there was initially a lack of demand in the immediate post-war period, over 26 liner and tramp ships as well as 13 tankers were built between 1920 and 1931 before the global economic crisis of the 1930s forced the shipyard to close.
Around 400 ships under the name Duncan were built at the shipyard. When the East Yard shipyard reopened in April 1937, it operated as a pure subsidiary of Lithgows.
literature
- Middlemiss, Norman L .: British Shipbuilding Yards . Volume 2: Clydeside. 1st edition. Shield Publications, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 1994, ISBN 1-871128-11-0 .