W. Harkess & Son

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W. Harkess & Son Ltd. was a shipbuilding company with shipyards in Sunderland and Middlesbrough (North East England). The company dealt mainly with the construction of coastal ships, necklaces and fishing vessels.

history

From 1847 William Harkess operated his first shipyard in North Shore, Sunderland. The actual company was founded in 1853 and in 1857 Harkess relocated to a new shipyard in Middlesbrough. In the early years of its existence, the company carried out ship repairs and from 1863 built coastal freighters such as the La Palma , tramp ships and small vehicles , which have survived to this day .

The Kowhai (ex Hopeful ) built by Harkess in 1910

During the First World War, mine sweepers of the Aberdare class and the Castle class as well as guard ships and Type X lighters for the British Admiralty , as well as War - standard ships of the type "D" and steam necklaces. One of the ships of this construction era that became known in the German-speaking world was the Teeswood, built in 1915 and sunk off Borkum in 1951 . After the end of the war, the shipyard initially continued the war building program and then continued its new building activities until the early 1920s. After one of the largest ships to date, the Pedrosa , had been delivered to Spanish clients in August 1921, the shipyard's last new building, the Enid Dunford , was built by July 1922 . In the wake of the shipping crisis in the 1920s, no further orders could be won and the shipyard was acquired in 1923 together with the neighboring Middlesbrougher shipyard Sir Raylton Dixon and Company to the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company - a subsidiary of Charles Parsons ' Marine Steam Turbine Company founded in January 1923 - sold. The new company was also unable to win any newbuilding orders and was transferred to National Shipbuilders Security in 1931 with seven other shipyards for processing . The shipyard was then closed, the inventory sold and the former shipyard buildings later demolished.

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 .

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