Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding and Engineering Company

The Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company Ltd. was a British machine and shipbuilding company , which was based in Blackwall (London) from 1837 to 1912 . Automobiles were also manufactured there between 1906 and 1911 .

history

In 1837 the company was founded as the Ditchburn and Mare Shipbuilding Company by shipbuilder Thomas J. Ditchburn and engineer and ship technician Charles Mare . Originally the company was based in Deptford , but after a fire on the premises that destroyed much of the facilities, the company moved to Orchard Place in Blackwall between the East India Dock Basin and Bow Creek in 1838 . There she took over the facilities of the former shipbuilders William and Benjamin Wallis .

The company developed well and a few years later the company had three locations with a total area of ​​57,000 m².

Ditchburn and Mare were among the first shipyards in the area to build steel ships. At first small paddle steamers with a weight of 50–100 ts were built, then they shifted to canal ferries and as early as 1840 the company was building ships of up to 300 ts. Early customers included the Iron Steamboat Company and the Blackwall Railway Company . A number of paddle steamers were built for the latter, e.g. B. the Meteor and the Prince of Wales .

During this time, the company was able to win a number of orders from the British Admiralty, such as B. to build the HMS Recruit (a brig with 12 guns), one of the first warships. The steamers Ariel and Erin were also built for the P&O .

Thomas Ditchburn retired from the business in 1847 and Charles Mare continued the company under the name CJ Mare & Company . There was also the ship technician James Ash , who later founded his own shipyard in Cubitt Town.

From 1847 the company grew considerably and Mare bought land on the Canning Town side of the Lea River . He set up a ferry service between the two banks.

Mare built a shipyard with boiler smiths and steel rolling mills where ships up to 4,000 ts could be built. Because of the limited space at the mouth of the Lea River, only ships up to 1,000 ts could be built at Orchard Place. In 1853 the company built the Himalaya for P&O, for a short time the largest passenger ship in the world, before it was converted into a troop transport.

In 1855 the company, which had meanwhile employed 3,000 employees and workers, got into economic difficulties because Charles Mare had to take an oath of disclosure . It is believed that the difficulties were due to late payments for ships that were already completed or that the cost calculation for Royal Navy orders was miscalculated. There was no shortage of orders; six contracts for gunboats and one for the construction of Westminster Bridge (built 1862) had to be fulfilled.

The lenders agreed to keep the yard operating and two employees, Joseph Westwood and Robert Baillie , were appointed managing directors. The main role in saving the company, however, was played by Peter Rolt , Mares father-in-law, who was also a Conservative MP for Greenwich in the lower house. Rolt was also a timber merchant and came from the Pett shipbuilding family .

Rolt took over the company's assets and in 1857 transferred them to a new limited company , Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. Ltd. The share capital was £ 100,000, divided into 20 shares of £ 5,000 each. Rolt had five of them, making him the main shareholder and chairman of the board.

The new company was the largest shipbuilder on the Thames. London city maps from 1860 show that the yard area comprised a large triangle at a right angle on the east bank of Bow Creek, with the rail link to the yard forming the third side. A smaller plot of land on the west bank was also part of it. The main part of the shipyard had a 320 m long quay. In the south-east, the site extended on the north bank of the Thames east of Bow Creek, with two slipways leading directly to the Thames. Today the area is cut by the A1020 Lower Lea Crossing and the Dockyards Light Railway south of Canning Town station .

In 1863 the shipyard was able to build warships up to 25,000 ts and mail ships up to 10,000 ts at the same time. One of the first orders from the Admiralty was the Warrior 1860, at the time the largest warship in the world and the first armored frigate with a steel hull. The Minotaur followed in 1863; she was 120 meters long and had a displacement of 10,690 tn.l .

The work on ships such as the Minotaur was carried out on the Canning Town side of the Lea River and here the Thames premises grew from less than 40,000 m² in 1856 to 121,000 m² in 1891. The old site at Orchard Place was up 1909 still the official seat of the company, although hardly any company activities took place on this property. At the end of the 1860s, the company only owned 20,000 m² of land there.

The ship on the Thames came in great economic difficulties since the shipyards in northern England had easier access to coal and iron, and many shipyards had to close in the wake of the financial crisis. 1866 The remaining shipyards like Thames were mainly involved in the construction of war and passenger ships.

Following the success of the Warrior and Minotaur , Thames received orders from naval agencies around the world and ships were built for Denmark , Greece , Portugal , Russia , Spain and the Ottoman Empire . The shipyard also built the first steel-hulled ship for the Prussian Navy , the King Wilhelm in 1869 and the cruiser Alfonso de Albuquerque for Portugal in 1883.

In the 1890s, the philanthropist Arnold Hills became managing director. He had already become director of the company in 1880 at the age of 23. Hills was one of the first UK directors to voluntarily introduce the eight-hour day for its workers, when the industry typically had 10-12 hour shifts.

In 1895 Hills helped found the Thames Ironworks FC football club and within two years the club was represented in the FA Cup of the London League. Because they wanted to hire professional footballers, the FC was dissolved in June 1900 and a month later the new club West Ham United was founded.

The shipyard built a total of 144 warships, including the ships of the line Fuji and Shikishima in 1897 and 1900 for the Imperial Japanese Navy , and many other civilian ships. In 1911 Hills approached Winston Churchill , who was then head of the Admiralty , because there was a lack of orders for further warships. However, his advance was not crowned with success and so the shipyard had to close its doors in 1912. Two years later the First World War began and the last ship built in the shipyard, the Thunderer , took part in the 1916 Skagerrak Battle .

Automobile construction (1906–1911)

Thames 50 hp (1908)

Cars of all sizes were built under the name Thames . The engines ranged from the single-cylinder engine with 1,295 cm³ to the six-cylinder in-line engine with 10,520 cm³. The vehicles were known to be rather sedate, only the 60 hp from 1908 brought a sporty note to the extensive model range. This car set almost all of Brooklands' contemporary speed records .

In 1911 the construction of passenger cars was given up and the focus was on commercial vehicles in addition to shipbuilding.

Car models

model	Construction period	cylinder	Displacement	wheelbase
45 hp	1906	6 row	6983 cc	3200 mm
15 hp	1908	2 row	1961 cc	2743 mm
24 hp	1908-1910	4 row	3840 cc	2896 mm
50 hp	1908	6 row	7780 cc	3353 mm
60 hp	1908	6 row	9656 cc	3353 mm
80 hp	1908	6 row	10520 cc	3962 mm
8 hp	1910-1911	1	1295 cc	2337 mm
12 hp	1910-1911	2 row	1961 cc	2438 mm
15.9 hp	1910-1911	4 row	2413 cc	2896 mm
45 hp	1910	6 row	7780 cc	3353 mm
50 hp	1910	6 row	9539 cc	3962 mm
25 hp	1911	4 row	3563 cc	3048 mm
60 hp	1911	6 row	9539 cc	3962 mm

Web links

Commons : Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Commons : Thames Automobile  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

literature

• David Culshaw & Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895–1975 . Veloce Publishing plc. Dorchester (1999). ISBN 1-874105-93-6