Whitehead shipyard
The Whitehead shipyard was a shipyard and torpedo factory located in the then Austro-Hungarian coastal town of Fiume (now Rijeka , Croatia). The shipyard was founded in 1875 by Robert Whitehead from the Stabilimento Tecnico Fiumano , which went bankrupt in 1873 , and existed until it was nationalized by the British government in 1914.
history
The predecessor of the Whitehead shipyard was Stabilimento Tecnico Fiumano , founded in 1861 , which manufactured warships and machines, but still had to forego government support. Therefore, the company went bankrupt in 1873. The successful British entrepreneur, engineer and inventor Robert Whitehead was most recently the company's operations director. After liquidation, he bought the company in 1875 and renamed it Robert Whitehead's Torpedo Factory . The company was later renamed Whitehead & Co. (Societa in Azioni) as the parent company, the Whitehead Group , became a public company.
In the late 1890s, the Whitehead Group and its Trieste branch were taken over by Count Georg Hoyos. He was married to Robert Whitehead's daughter Alice and appointed Whitehead's son John as the new operations manager, leaving the company virtually family-owned. In 1902, however, John Whitehead died unexpectedly, and Count Hoyos took over personally until he also passed away in 1904. Now a long-time employee, Payne Gallway, took over the company until he also died in 1906. In 1907, the British Vickers Group acquired significant shares in the company, the rest remained in family ownership.
From 1910, the company also built submarines for the first time . Six submarines of three different types (two each from Simon Lake , Germania , John Philip Holland ) were ordered by the Austro-Hungarian Navy abroad to be assembled in the Whitehead shipyard. As a result, the best types were to emerge and their own submarines were to be built in the Whitehead shipyard, which also happened from April 1, 1910, when the first Austrian submarine was completed with the SMU 5 .
With the outbreak of war in 1914, the group was nationalized by the British government, the shipyard in Fiume was not affected due to the state of war with Austria-Hungary. Until the end of the monarchy, numerous submarines were made for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. As the Fium harbor was exposed to attacks, part of the production was relocated to St. Pölten . For this purpose, properties of the First Austrian Glanzstoff factory were taken over and expanded into a branch by 1915. After the end of the war, the plant continued as a machine factory and foundry, but was only able to maintain operations until 1925. Most of the factories were bought back by the Glanzstoff company.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerhard A. Stadler , 2006: The industrial heritage of Lower Austria , chapter St. Pölten parish - Whithehead , pp. 607-608. ISBN 3-20577460-4
Coordinates: 45 ° 20 ′ 4.1 ″ N , 14 ° 24 ′ 12.6 ″ E