Shipbuilders to the World

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Kirk was a son of the manse, and after attending school at Arbroath he proceeded to Edinburgh University. Following graduation he served an apprenticeship at the Vulcan Foundry, Glasgow, before serving first as Chief Draughtsman with the Thames shipbuilders and engineers Maudslay Sons \& Field, and later as Engineer of Paraffin Young's Works at Bathgate and West Calder in Lothian. He was credited with the inventions of many ingenious appliances and techniques for improving production in these two establishments. About 1866 Kirk returned to Glasgow as Manager of the Cranstonhill Engine Works, then moved to Elder's Shipyard (later known as the Fairfield Company) as Engineering Manager. There he made history in producing the world's first triple-expansion engines for the single-screw steamship Propontis in 1874. That decade was to confirm the Clyde's leading role as shipbuilders to the world and to establish the iron ship with efficient reciprocating machinery as the workhorse of the British Merchant Marine. Upon the death of the great Clyde shipbuilder Robert Napier in 1876, Kirk and others took over as partners in the shipbuilding yard and engine shops of Robert Napier \& Sons. There in 1881 they built a ship that is acknowledged as one of the masterpieces of British shipbuilding: the SS Aberdeen for George Thompson's Aberdeen Line to the Far East. In this ship the fullest advantage was taken of high steam temperatures and pressures, which were expanded progressively in a three-cylinder configuration. The Aberdeen, in its many voyages from London to China and Japan, was to prove the efficiency of these engines that had been so carefully designed in Glasgow. In the following years Dr Kirk (he has always been known as Doctor, although his honorary LLD was only awarded by Glasgow University in 1888) persuaded the Admiralty and several shipping companies to accept not only triple-expansion machinery but also the use of mild steel in ship construction. The successful SS Parisian, built for the Allan Line of Glasgow, was one of these pioneer ships.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping, Steam and internal combustion engines

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Pounder served an apprenticeship with Richardsons Westgarth, marine engineers in north east England. Shortly after, he moved to Harland \& Wolff of Belfast and there fulfilled his life's work. He rose to the rank of Director but is remembered for his outstanding leadership in producing the most advanced steam and diesel machinery installations of their time. Harland \& Wolff were the main licensees for the Burmeister \& Wain marine diesel system, and the Copenhagen company made most of the decisions on design; however, Pounder often found himself in the hot seat and once had the responsibility of concurring with the shipyard's decision to build three Atlantic liners with the largest diesel engines in the world, well beyond the accepted safe levels of extrapolation. With this, Belfast secured worldwide recognition as builders of diesel-driven liners. During the German occupation of Denmark (1940–5), the engineering department at Belfast worked on its own and through systematic research and experimentation built up a database of information that was invaluable in the postwar years.

Pounder was instrumental in the development of airless injection diesel fuel pumps. He was a stalwart supporter of all research and development, and while at Belfast was involved in the building of twelve hundred power units. While in his twenties, Pounder began a literary career which continued for sixty years. The bulk of his books and papers were on engineering and arguably the best known is his work on marine diesel engines, which ran to many editions. He was Chairman of Pametrada, the marine engineering research council of Great Britain, and later of the machinery committee of the British Ship Research Association. He regarded good relations within the industry as a matter of paramount importance.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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King was educated at the High School of Glasgow, and then served an apprenticeship with the Port Glasgow shipyard of Russell \& Co. This was followed by experience in drawing offices in Port Glasgow, Hull and finally in Belfast, where he was responsible for the separate White Star Line drawing office of Harland \& Wolff Ltd, which was then producing the plans for the Atlantic passenger liners Majestic and Teutonic. Following certain unpopular government shipping enactments in 1890, a protest from shipbuilders and shipowners in Ireland, Liverpool and the West of Scotland led to the founding of a new classification society to compete against Lloyd's Register of Shipping. It became known as the British Corporation Register and had headquarters in Glasgow. King was recruited to the staff and by 1903 had become Chief Surveyor, a position he held until his retirement thirty-seven years later. By then the Register was a world leader, with hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping on its books; it acted as consultant to many governments and international agencies. Throughout his working life, King did everything in his power to quantify the risks and problems of ship operation: his contribution to the Load Lines Convention of 1929 was typical, and few major enactments in shipping were designed without his approval. During the inter-war period the performance of the British Corporation outshone that of all rivals, for which King deserved full credit. His especial understanding was for steel structures, and in this respect he ensured that the British Corporation enabled owners to build ships of strengths equal to any others despite using up to 10 per cent less steel within the structure. In 1949 Lloyd's Register of Shipping and the British Corporation merged to form the largest and most influential ship classification society in the world.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Lithgow attended Glasgow Academy and then spent a year in Paris. In 1901 he commenced a shipyard apprenticeship with Russell \& Co., where his father, William Lithgow, was sole proprietor. For years Russell's had topped the Clyde tonnage output and more than once had been the world's leading yard. Along with his brother Henry, Lithgow in 1908 was appointed a director, and in a few years he was Chairman and the yard was renamed Lithgows Ltd. By the outbreak of the First World War the Lithgow brothers were recognized as good shipbuilders and astute businessmen. In 1914 he joined the Royal Artillery; he rose to the rank of major and served with distinction, but his skills in administration were recognized and he was recalled home to become Director of Merchant Shipbuilding when British shipping losses due to submarine attack became critical. This appointment set a pattern, with public duties becoming predominant and the day-to-day shipyard business being organized by his brother. During the interwar years, Lithgow served on many councils designed to generate work and expand British commercial interests. His public appointments were legion, but none was as controversial as his directorship of National Shipbuilders Security Ltd, formed to purchase and "sterilize" inefficient shipyards that were hindering recovery from the Depression. To this day opinions are divided on this issue, but it is beyond doubt that Lithgow believed in the task in hand and served unstintingly. During the Second World War he was Controller of Merchant Shipbuilding and Repairs and was one of the few civilians to be on the Board of Admiralty. On the cessation of hostilities, Lithgow devoted time to research boards and to the expansion of the Lithgow Group, which now included the massive Fairfield Shipyard as well as steel, marine engineering and other companies.

Throughout his life Lithgow worked for the Territorial Army, but he was also a devoted member of the Church of Scotland. He gave practical support to the lona Community, no doubt influenced by unbounded love of the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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From 1844 until 1962, the Clyde shipyard of William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton, produced over 1,500 ships, trained innumerable students of all nationalities in shipbuilding and marine engineering, and for the seventy-plus years of their existence were accepted worldwide as the leaders in the application of science to ship design and construction. Until the closure of the yard members of the Denny family were among the partners and later directors of the firm: they included men as distinguished as Dr Peter Denny (1821(?)–95), Sir Archibald Denny (1860–1936) and Sir Maurice Denny (1886– 1955), the main collaborator in the design of the Denny-Brown ship stabilizer.

One of the most influential of this shipbuilding family was William Denny, now referred to as William 3! His early education was at Dumbarton, then on Jersey and finally at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, before he commenced an apprenticeship at his father's shipyard. From the outset he not only showed great aptitude for learning and hard work but also displayed an ability to create good relationships with all he came into contact with. At the early age of 21 he was admitted a partner of the shipbuilding business of William Denny and Brothers, and some years later also of the associated engineering firm of Denny \& Co. His deep-felt interest in what is now known as industrial relations led him in 1871 to set up a piecework system of payment in the shipyard. In this he was helped by the Yard Manager, Richard Ramage, who later was to found the Leith shipyard, which produced the world's most elegant steam yachts. This research was published later as a pamphlet called The Worth of Wages, an unusual and forward-looking action for the 1860s, when Denny maintained that an absentee employer should earn as much contempt and disapproval as an absentee landlord! In 1880 he initiated an awards scheme for all company employees, with grants and awards for inventions and production improvements. William Denny was not slow to impose new methods and to research naval architecture, a special interest being progressive ship trials with a view to predicting effective horsepower. In time this led to his proposal to the partners to build a ship model testing tank beside the Dumbarton shipyard; this scheme was completed in 1883 and was to the third in the world (after the Admiralty tank at Torquay, managed by William Froude and the Royal Netherlands Navy facility at Amsterdam, under B.J. Tideman. In 1876 the Denny Shipyard started work with mild-quality shipbuilding steel on hulls for the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, and in 1879 the world's first two ships of any size using this weight-saving material were produced: they were the Rotomahana for the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand and the Buenos Ayrean for the Allan Line of Glasgow. On the naval-architecture side he was involved in Denny's proposals for standard cross curves of stability for all ships, which had far-reaching effects and are now accepted worldwide. He served on the committee working on improvements to the Load Line regulations and many other similar public bodies. After a severe bout of typhoid and an almost unacceptable burden of work, he left the United Kingdom for South America in June 1886 to attend to business with La Platense Flotilla Company, an associate company of William Denny and Brothers. In March the following year, while in Buenos Aires, he died by his own hand, a death that caused great and genuine sadness in the West of Scotland and elsewhere.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping, Steam and internal combustion engines

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John was the third son of David Elder. The father came from a family of millwrights and moved to Glasgow where he worked for the well-known shipbuilding firm of Napier's and was involved with improving marine engines. John was educated at Glasgow High School and then for a while at the Department of Civil Engineering at Glasgow University, where he showed great aptitude for mathematics and drawing. He spent five years as an apprentice under Robert Napier followed by two short periods of activity as a pattern-maker first and then a draughtsman in England. He returned to Scotland in 1849 to become Chief Draughtsman to Napier, but in 1852 he left to become a partner with the Glasgow general engineering company of Randolph Elliott \& Co. Shortly after his induction (at the age of 28), the engineering firm was renamed Randolph Elder \& Co.; in 1868, when the partnership expired, it became known as John Elder \& Co. From the outset Elder, with his partner, Charles Randolph, approached mechanical (especially heat) engineering in a rigorous manner. Their knowledge and understanding of entropy ensured that engine design was not a hit-and-miss affair, but one governed by recognition of the importance of the new kinetic theory of heat and with it a proper understanding of thermodynamic principles, and by systematic development. In this Elder was joined by W.J.M. Rankine, Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at Glasgow University, who helped him develop the compound marine engine. Elder and Randolph built up a series of patents, which guaranteed their company's commercial success and enabled them for a while to be the sole suppliers of compound steam reciprocating machinery. Their first such engine at sea was fitted in 1854 on the SS Brandon for the Limerick Steamship Company; the ship showed an improved performance by using a third less coal, which he was able to reduce still further on later designs.

Elder developed steam jacketing and recognized that, with higher pressures, triple-expansion types would be even more economical. In 1862 he patented a design of quadruple-expansion engine with reheat between cylinders and advocated the importance of balancing reciprocating parts. The effect of his improvements was to greatly reduce fuel consumption so that long sea voyages became an economic reality.

His yard soon reached dimensions then unequalled on the Clyde where he employed over 4,000 workers; Elder also was always interested in the social welfare of his labour force. In 1860 the engine shops were moved to the Govan Old Shipyard, and again in 1864 to the Fairfield Shipyard, about 1 mile (1.6 km) west on the south bank of the Clyde. At Fairfield, shipbuilding was commenced, and with the patents for compounding secure, much business was placed for many years by shipowners serving long-distance trades such as South America; the Pacific Steam Navigation Company took up his ideas for their ships. In later years the yard became known as the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd, but it remains today as one of Britain's most efficient shipyards and is known now as Kvaerner Govan Ltd.

In 1869, at the age of only 45, John Elder was unanimously elected President of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland; however, before taking office and giving his eagerly awaited presidential address, he died in London from liver disease. A large multitude attended his funeral and all the engineering shops were silent as his body, which had been brought back from London to Glasgow, was carried to its resting place. In 1857 Elder had married Isabella Ure, and on his death he left her a considerable fortune, which she used generously for Govan, for Glasgow and especially the University. In 1883 she endowed the world's first Chair of Naval Architecture at the University of Glasgow, an act which was reciprocated in 1901 when the University awarded her an LLD on the occasion of its 450th anniversary.

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RLH / FMW

SUBJECT AREA: Steam and internal combustion engines

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Howden was educated in Prestonpans. While aged only 14 or 15, he travelled across Scotland by canal to Glasgow, where he served an engineering apprenticeship with James Gray \& Co. In 1853 he completed his time and for some months served with the civil engineers Bell and Miller, and then with Robert Griffiths, a designer of screw propellers for ships. In 1854, at the age of 22, Howden set up as a consulting engineer and designer. He designed a rivet-making machine from which he realized a fair sum by the sale of patent rights, this assisting him in converting the design business into a manufacturing one. His first contract for a marine engine came in 1859 for the compound steam engine and the watertube boilers of the Anchor Liner Ailsa Craig. This ship operated at 100 psi (approximately 7 kg/cm²), well above the norm for those days. James Howden \& Co. was formed in 1862. Despite operating in the world's most competitive market, the new company remained prosperous through the flow of inventions in marine propulsion. Shipbuilding was added to the company's list of services, but such work was subcontracted. Work was obtained from all the great shipping companies building in the Glasgow region, and with such throughput Howden's could afford research and experimentation. This led to the Howden hot-air forced-draught system, whereby furnace waste gases were used to heat the air being drawn into the combustion chambers. The first installation was on the New York City, built in 1885 for West Indian service. Howden's fertile mind brought about a fully enclosed high-speed marine steam engine in the 1900s and, shortly after, the Howden-Zoelly impulse steam turbine for land operation. Until his death, Howden worked on many technical and business problems: he was involved in the St Helena Whaling Company, marble quarrying in Greece and in the design of a recoilless gun for the Admiralty.

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SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy, Ports and shipping

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The son of a merchant of Dundee, Kirkaldy was educated there, then at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, and at Edinburgh University. For a while he worked in his father's office, but with a preference for engineering, in 1843 he commenced an apprenticeship at the Glasgow works of Robert Napier. After four years in the shops he was transferred to the drawing office and in a very few years rose to become Chief. Here Kirkaldy demonstrated a remarkable talent both for the meticulous recording of observations and data and for technical drawing. His work also had an aesthetic appeal and four of his drawings of Napier steamships were shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1855, earning both Napier and Kirkaldy a medal. His "as fitted" set of drawings of the Cunard Liner Persia, which had been built in 1855, is now in the possession of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London; it is regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind in the world, and has even been exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.

With the impending order for the Royal Naval Ironclad Black Prince (sister ship to HMS Warrior, now preserved at Portsmouth) and for some high-pressure marine boilers and engines, there was need for a close scientific analysis of the physical properties of iron and steel. Kirkaldy, now designated Chief Draughtsman and Calculator, was placed in charge of this work, which included comparisons of puddled steel and wrought iron, using a simple lever-arm testing machine. The tests lasted some three years and resulted in Kirkaldy's most important publication, Experiments on Wrought Iron and Steel (1862, London), which gained him wide recognition for his careful and thorough work. Napier's did not encourage him to continue testing; but realizing the growing importance of materials testing, Kirkaldy resigned from the shipyard in 1861. For the next two and a half years Kirkaldy worked on the design of a massive testing machine that was manufactured in Leeds and installed in premises in London, at The Grove, Southwark.

The works was open for trade in January 1866 and engineers soon began to bring him specimens for testing on the great machine: Joseph Cubitt (son of William Cubitt) brought him samples of the materials for the new Blackfriars Bridge, which was then under construction. Soon The Grove became too cramped and Kirkaldy moved to 99 Southwark Street, reopening in January 1874. In the years that followed, Kirkaldy gained a worldwide reputation for rigorous and meticulous testing and recording of results, coupled with the highest integrity. He numbered the most distinguished engineers of the time among his clients.

After Kirkaldy's death, his son William George, whom he had taken into partnership, carried on the business. When the son died in 1914, his widow took charge until her death in 1938, when the grandson David became proprietor. He sold out to Treharne \& Davies, chemical consultants, in 1965, but the works finally closed in 1974. The future of the premises and the testing machine at first seemed threatened, but that has now been secured and the machine is once more in working order. Over almost one hundred years of trading in South London, the company was involved in many famous enquiries, including the analysis of the iron from the ill-fated Tay Bridge (see Bouch, Sir Thomas).

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LRD / FMW

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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After early education at Cupar in Fife, Meek commenced training as a naval architect, taking the then popular sandwich apprenticeship of alternate half years at the University of Glasgow (with a Caird Scholarship) and at a shipyard, in his case the Caledon of Dundee. On leaving Dundee he worked for five years with the British Ship Research Association before joining Alfred Holt \& Co., owners of the Blue Funnel Line. During his twenty-five years at Liverpool, he rose to Chief Naval Architect and Director and was responsible for bringing the cargo-liner concept to its ultimate in design. When the company had become Ocean Fleets, it joined with other British shipowners and looked to Meek for the first purpose-built containership fleet in the world. This required new ship designs, massive worldwide investment in port facilities and marketing to win public acceptance of freight containers, thereby revolutionizing dry-cargo shipping. Under the houseflag of OCL (now POCL), this pioneer service set the highest standards of service and safety and continues to operate on almost every ocean.

In 1979 Meek returned to the shipbuilding industry when he became Head of Technology at British Shipbuilders. Closely involved in contemporary problems of fuel economy and reduced staffing, he held the post for five years before his appointment as Managing Director of the National Maritime Institute. He was deeply involved in the merger with the British Ship Research Association to form British Maritime Technology (BMT), an organization of which he became Deputy Chairman.

Marshall Meek has held many public offices, and is one of the few to have been President of two of the United Kingdom's maritime institutions. He has contributed over forty papers to learned societies, has acted as Visiting Professor to Strathclyde University and University College London, and serves on advisory committees to the Ministry of Defence, the Department of Transport and Lloyd's Register of Shipping. While in Liverpool he served as a Justice of the Peace.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Brown commenced his apprenticeship on the River Clyde in the late 1830s, working for some of the most famous marine engineering companies and ultimately with the Caledonian Railway Company. In 1850 he joined the shipyard of A. \& J.Inglis Ltd of Partick as Engineering Manager; during his ten years there he pioneered the fitting of link-motion valve gear to marine engines. Other interesting engines were built, all ahead of their time, including a three-cylinder direct-acting steam engine.

His real life's work commenced in 1860 when he entered into partnership with the Renfrew shipbuilder William Simons. Within one year he had designed the fast Clyde steamer Rothesay Castle, a ship less than 200 ft (61 m) long, yet which steamed at c.20 knots and subsequently became a notable American Civil War blockade runner. At this time the company also built the world's first sailing ship with wire-rope rigging. Within a few years of joining the shipyard on the Cart (a tributary of the Clyde), he had designed the first self-propelled hopper barges built in the United Kingdom. He then went on to design, patent and supervise the building of hopper dredges, bucket ladder dredges and sand dredges, which by the end of the century had capacity of 10,000 tons per hour. In 1895 they built an enclosed hopper-type ship which was the prototype of all subsequent sewage-dumping vessels. Typical of his inventions was the double-ended screw-elevating deck ferry, a ship of particular value in areas where there is high tidal range. Examples of this design are still to be found in many seaports of the world. Brown ultimately became Chairman of Simons shipyard, and in his later years took an active part in civic affairs, serving for fifteen years as Provost of Renfrew. His influence in establishing Renfrew as one of the world's centres of excellence in dredge design and building was considerable, and he was instrumental in bringing several hundred ship contracts of a specialist nature to the River Clyde.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Peter Du Cane was appointed a midshipman in the Royal Navy in 1913, having commenced as a cadet at the tender age of 13. At the end of the First World War he transferred to the engineering branch and was posted ultimately to the Yangtze River gunboat fleet. In 1928 he resigned, trained as a pilot and then joined the shipbuilders Vosper Ltd of Portsmouth. For thirty-five years he held the posts of Managing Director and Chief Designer, developing the company's expertise in high-speed, small warships, pleasure craft and record breakers. During the Second World War the company designed and built many motor torpedo-boats, air-sea rescue craft and similar ships. Du Cane served for some months in the Navy, but at the request of the Government he returned to his post in the shipyard. The most glamorous products of the yard were the record breakers Bluebird II, with which Malcolm Campbell took the world water speed record in 1939, and the later Crusader, in which John Cobb lost his life. Despite this blow the company went from strength to strength, producing the epic Brave class fast patrol craft for the Royal Navy, which led to export orders. In 1966 the yard merged with John I.Thornycroft Ltd. Commander Du Cane retired seven years later.

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SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Ports and shipping

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Wilson, the son of a sailor, spent his early years on the Forth. Later his father moved home to the west and Wilson served his apprenticeship as a shipwright on the Clyde at the small shipyards of Bowling, fifteen miles (24 km) west of Glasgow and on the river's north bank. In his late thirties Wilson was to take the leading role in what is arguably the most important development in Scotland's distinguished shipbuilding history: the building of the world's first properly constructed iron ship. This ship, the Vulcan, was the culmination of several years' effort by a group of people well connected within the academic establishment of Scotland. The Forth and Clyde Canal Company had passed instructions for investigations to be made into reducing running expenses and a distinguished committee looked into this matter. They included John Robison (Secretary of the Royal Society of Edinburgh), Professor Joseph Black of Glasgow University, James Watt and John Schanck. After a period of consideration it was decided to build a new, fastpassage barge of iron, and tenders were invited from several appropriate contractors. Wilson, with the assistance of two blacksmiths, John and Thomas Smellie, was awarded the work, and the Vulcan was constructed and ultimately launched at Faskine near Glasgow in 1819. The work involved was far beyond the comprehension of engineers of the twentieth century, as Wilson had to arrange puddled-iron plates for the shell and hand-crafted angle irons for the frames. His genius is now apparent as every steel ship worldwide uses a form of construction literally "hammered out on the anvil" between 1818 and 1819. The Vulcan was almost 64 ft (19.5 m) in length and 11 ft (3.4 m) broad. In 1822 Wilson was appointed an inspector of works for the Canal Company, and ultimately he superintended the building of the docks at Grangemouth, where he died in 1873, the same year that the Vulcan was broken up.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Herreshoff, or, as he was known, Captain Nat, was seventh in a family of nine, four of whom became blind in childhood. Association with such problems may have sharpened his appreciation of shape and form; indeed, he made a lengthy European small-boat trip with a blind brother. While working on yacht designs, he used three-dimensional models in conjunction with the sheer draught on the drawing-board. With many of the family being boatbuilders, he started designing at the age of 16 and then decided to make this his career. As naval architecture was not then a graduating subject, he studied mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While still studying, c.1867, he broke new ground by preparing direct reading time handicapping tables for yachts up to 110 ft (33.5 m) long. After working with the Corliss Company, he set up the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, in partnership with J.B.Herreshoff, as shipbuilders and engineers. Over the years their output included steam machinery, fishing vessels, pleasure craft and racing yachts. They built the first torpedo boat for the US Navy and another for the Royal Navy, the only such acquisition in the late nineteenth century. Herreshoff designed six of the world's greatest yachts, of the America's Cup, between 1890 and 1920. His accomplishments included new types of lightweight wood fasteners, new systems of framing, hollow spars and better methods of cutting sails. He continued to work full-time until 1935 and his work was internationally acclaimed. He maintained cordial relations with his British rivals Fife, Nicholson and G.L. Watson, and enjoyed friendship with his compatriot Edward Burgess. Few will ever match Herreshoff as an all-round engineer and designer.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Of Scottish stock, McKay was the son of a farmer and the grandson of a loyalist officer who had left the United States after the War of Independence. After some elementary shipwright training in Nova Scotia, McKay travelled to New York to apprentice to the great American shipbuilder Isaac Webb, then building some of the outstanding ships of the nineteenth century. At the age of 21 and a fully fledged journeyman, McKay again set out and worked in various shipyards before joining William Currier in 1841 to establish a yard in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He moved on again in 1843 to form another venture, the yard of McKay and Pickett in the same locality.

In 1844 McKay came to know Enoch Train of Boston, then proprietor of a fleet of fast clipper ships on the US A-to-Liverpool run. He persuaded McKay to set out on his own and promised to support him with orders for ships. The partnership with Pickett was dissolved amicably and Donald McKay opened the yard in East Boston, from which some of the world's fastest ships were to be launched. McKay's natural ability as a shipwright had been enhanced by the study of mathematics and engineering drawing, something he had learned from his wife Albenia Boole, the daughter of another shipbuilder. He was not too proud to learn from other masters on the East Coast such as William H.Webb and John Willis Griffiths. The first ships from East Boston included the Washington Irvine of 1845 and the Anglo Saxon of 1846; they were well built and had especially comfortable emigrant accommodation. However, faster ships were to follow, almost all three-masted, fully rigged ships with very fine or "extreme" lines, including the Flying Cloud for the Californian gold rush of 1851, the four-masted barque Great Republic; then, c. 1854, the Lightning was ordered by James Baines of Liverpool for his Black Ball Line. The Lightning holds to this day the speed record for a square-rigged ship's daily run. As the years passed the shipbuilding scene changed, and while McKay's did build some iron ships for the US Navy, they became much less profitable and in 1875 the yard closed down, with McKay retiring to take up farming.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Despite being one of the youngest entrants to the South Kensington School of Naval Architecture, Purvis obtained both a Whitworth Exhibition and a Scholarship. Upon graduating he commenced a career in shipbuilding that involved him in military, civil and research work in Scotland, England and Japan. Initially he worked in Robert Napier's shipyard on the River Clyde, and then in the London drawing offices of Sir Edward Reed, before joining the staff of the Admiralty, where he assisted William Froude in his classic ship experiments at Torquay. After a short spell with Sir William Pearce at Govan, Purvis joined William Denny and Bros and with his recently gained knowledge of hydrodynamics helped set up the world's first commercial ship model tank at Dumbarton. His penultimate appointment was that of Shipbuilding Partner in the Scottish shipyard of Blackwood and Gordon.

In 1901 he became Professor of Naval Architecture at the Imperial University of Tokyo (succeeding Percy Hillhouse, who had become Naval Architect of Fairfield and later became Professor at Glasgow University) and it was in this role that Purvis was to achieve distinction through developing a teaching course of the highest order. It is accepted that his influence on the Japanese shipbuilding industry was profound. After nineteen years of service he retired to the United Kingdom.

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SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Ports and shipping, Public utilities

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Mavor came from a distinguished Scottish family with connections in medicine, industry and the arts. On completion of his education at Glasgow University, he joined R.J.Crompton \& Co.; then in 1883, along with William C.Muir, he established the Glasgow firm which later became well known as Mavor and Coulson. It pioneered the supply of electricity to public undertakings and equipped the first two generating stations in Scotland. Mavor and his fellow directors appreciated the potential demand by industry in Glasgow for electricity. Two industries were especially well served; first, the coal-mines, where electric lighting and power transformed efficiency and safety beyond recognition; and second, marine engineering. Here Mavor recognized the importance of the variable-speed motor in working with marine propellers which have a tighter range of efficient working speeds. In 1911 he built a 50 ft (15 m) motor launch, appropriately named Electric Arc, at Dumbarton and fitted it with an alternating-current motor driven by a petrol engine and dynamo. Within two years British shipyards were building electrically powered ships, and by the beginning of the First World War the United States Navy had a 20,000-ton collier with this new form of propulsion.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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McNeill was born in Clydebank just outside Glasgow, and was to serve that town for most of his life. After education at Clydebank High School and then at Allan Glen's in Glasgow, in 1908 he entered the shipyard of John Brown \& Co. Ltd as an apprentice. He was encouraged to matriculate at the University of Glasgow, where he studied naval architecture under the (then) unique Glasgow system of "sandwich" training, alternately spending six months in the shipyard, followed by winter at the Faculty of Engineering. On graduating in 1915, he joined the Army and by 1918 had risen to the rank of Major in the Royal Field Artillery.

After the First World War, McNeill returned to the shipyard and in 1928 was appointed Chief Naval Architect. In 1934 he was made a local director of the company. During the difficult period of the 1930s he was in charge of the technical work which led to the design, launching and successful completion of the great liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. Some of the most remarkable ships of the mid-twentieth century were to come from this shipyard, including the last British battleship, HMS Vanguard, and the Royal Yacht Britannia, completed in 1954. From 1948 until 1959, Sir James was Managing Director of the Clydebank part of the company and was Deputy Chairman by the time he retired in 1962. His public service was remarkable and included chairmanship of the Shipbuilding Conference and of the British Ship Research Association, and membership of the Committee of Lloyd's Register of Shipping.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Amos Ayre grew up on the Tyne with the stimulus of shipbuilding and seafaring around him. After an apprenticeship as a ship draughtsman and distinction in his studies, he held responsible posts in the shipyards of Belfast and later Dublin. His first dramatic move came in 1909 when he accepted the post of Manager of the new Employment Exchange at Govan, then just outside Glasgow. During the First World War he was in charge of fleet coaling operations on the River Forth, and later was promoted Admiralty District Director for shipyard labour in Scotland.

Before the conclusion of hostilities, with his brother Wilfrid (later Sir Wilfrid Ayre) he founded the Burntisland Shipbuilding Company in Fife. Setting up on a green field site allowed the brothers to show innovation in design, production and marketing. Such was their success that the new yard was busy throughout the Depression, building standard ships which incorporated low operating costs with simplicity of construction.

Through public service culminating in the 1929 Safety of Life at Sea Conference, Amos Ayre became recognized not only as an eminent naval architect, but also as a skilled negotiator. In 1936 he was invited to become Chairman of the Shipbuilding Conference and thereby virtual leader of the industry. As war approached he planned with meticulous care the rearrangement of national shipbuilding capacity, enabling Britain to produce standard hulls ranging from the legendary TID tugs to the standard freighters built in Sunderland or Port Glasgow. In 1939 he became Director of Merchant Shipbuilding, a position he held until 1944, when with typical foresight he asked to be released to plan for shipbuilding's return to normality.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Kenneth Barnaby was an eminent naval architect, as were his father and grandfather before him: his grandfather was Sir Nathaniel Barnaby KGB, Director of Naval Construction, and his father was Sydney W.Barnaby, naval architect of John I. Thornycroft \& Co., Shipbuilders, Southampton. At one time all three were members of the Institution of Naval Architects, the first time that this had ever occurred with three members from one family.

Kenneth Barnaby served his apprenticeship at the Thornycroft shipyard in Southampton and later graduated in engineering from the Central Technical College, South Kensington, London. He worked for some years at Le Havre and at John Brown's shipyard at Clydebank before rejoining his old firm in 1916 as Assistant to the Shipyard Manager. In 1919 he went to Rio de Janeiro as a chief ship draughtsman, and finally he returned to Thornycroft, in 1924 he succeeded his father as Naval Architect, and remained in that post until his retirement in 1955, having been appointed a director in 1950.

Barnaby had a wide knowledge and understanding of ships and ship design and during the Second World War he was responsible for much of the development work for landing craft, as well as for many other specialist ships built at the Southampton yard. His experience as a deep-sea yachtsman assisted him. He wrote several important books; however, none can compare with the Centenary Volume of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. In this work, which is used and read widely to this day by naval architects worldwide, he reviewed every paper presented and almost every verbal contribution made to the Transactions during its one hundred years.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Following his education at Brisbane Academy in Largs, William Fife (the third generation of the name) became apprenticed at the age of 14 to the already famous yacht-building yard owned by his family at Fairlie in Ayrshire. On completion of his apprenticeship, he joined the Paisley shipbuilders John Fullerton \& Co. to gain experience in iron shipbuilding before going on as Manager to the Marquis of Ailsa's Culzean Steam Launch and Yacht Works. Initially the works was sited below the famous castle at Culzean, but some years later it moved a few miles along the Ayrshire Coast to Maidens. The Culzean Company was wound up in 1887 and Fife then returned to the family yard, where he remained for the rest of his working life. Many outstanding yachts were the product of his hours on the drawing board, including auxiliary sailing cruisers, motor yachts and well-known racing craft. The most outstanding designs were for two of Sir Thomas Lipton's challengers for the America's Cup: Shamrock I and Shamrock III. The latter yacht was tested at the Ship Model Experiment Tank owned by Denny of Dumbarton before being built at their Leven Shipyard in 1903. Shamrock III may have been one of the earliest America's Cup yachts to have been designed with a high level of scientific input. The hull construction was unusual for the early years of the twentieth century, being of alloy steel with decks of aluminium.

William Fife was decorated for his service to shipbuilding during the First World War. With the onset of the Great Depression the shipyard's output slowed, and in the 1930s it was sold to other interests; this was the end of the 120-year Fife dynasty.

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