Origins J & G Thomson Two brothers — James and
George Thomson, who had worked for the engineer
Robert Napier — founded the engineering and shipbuilding company J&G Thomson. The brothers founded the Clyde Bank Foundry in Anderston in 1847. They opened the Clyde Bank Iron Shipyard at
Cessnock,
Govan, in 1851 and launched their first ship, , in 1852. They quickly established a reputation in building prestigious passenger ships, building for
Cunard in 1854 and the record-breaking in 1867. Several of the ships they built were bought by the
Confederacy for
blockade running in the American Civil War, including
CSS Robert E. Lee and
Fingal, which was converted into the ironclad
Atlanta. The brothers separated their business association in 1850 and, after an acrimonious split, George took over the shipbuilding end of the association. James Thomas started a new business. George Thomson died in 1866, followed in 1870 by his brother James. They were succeeded by the sons of the younger brother George, called James Rodger Thomson and George Paul Thomson. Faced with the compulsory purchase of their shipyard by the Clyde Navigation Trust (which wanted the land to construct the new
Princes' Dock), they established a new Clyde Bank Iron Shipyard further downriver at the Barns o' Clyde, near the village of
Dalmuir, in 1871. This site at the confluence of the tributary
River Cart with the
River Clyde, at Newshot Island, allowed very large ships to be launched. The brothers soon moved their iron foundry and engineering works to the same site. The connection to the area was so complete that James Rodger Thomson became the first Provost of Clydebank. Despite intermittent financial difficulties, the company developed a reputation based on engineering quality and innovation. The rapid growth of the shipyard and its ancillary works, and the building of housing for the workers, resulted in the formation of a new town which took its name from that of the shipyard which gave birth to it —
Clydebank. In 1899 the steelmaker
John Brown and Company of
Sheffield bought J&G Thomson's Clydebank yard for £923,255 3s 3d. In 1848 Brown developed and patented the conical spring
buffer for
railway carriages, which was very successful. With a growing reputation and fortune, he moved to a larger site in 1856. He began to make his own
iron from
iron ore, rather than buying it, and in 1858 adopted the
Bessemer process for producing steel. These moves all proved successful and lucrative, and in 1861 he started supplying steel
rails to the rapidly expanding railway industry. A legal case resolved in 1904 by the
House of Lords between Clydebank Engineering and Shipbuilding and Don Jose Ramos Yzquierdo y Castaneda, a minister in the
Spanish government, dealt with a situation in which a significant case in the history of legal rulings on
penalty clauses and
liquidated damages.
John Brown & Company, shipbuilders In the early 1900s, the company innovated marine engineering technology through the development of the Brown-Curtis
turbine, which had been originally developed and patented by the U.S. company International Curtis Marine Turbine Co. These engines' performance impressed the Admiralty, which consequently ordered many of the major Royal Navy warships from John Brown. The first notable order was for the
battlecruiser , followed by the battlecruisers , and the battleship . Clydebank also became
Cunard Line's preferred shipbuilder, building its flagship liners and . Prior to construction commencing on
Lusitania in 1904 the shipyard was reorganized to accommodate her so that she could be launched diagonally across the widest available part of the river Clyde where it met a tributary (the
River Cart), the ordinary width of the river being only compared to the long ship. The new slipway took up the space of two existing ones and was built on reinforcing piles driven deeply into the ground to ensure it could take the temporary concentrated weight of the whole ship as it slid into the water. In addition, the company spent £8,000 to dredge the Clyde, £6,500 on a new gas plant, £6,500 on a new electrical plant, £18,000 to extend the dock and £19,000 for a new crane capable of lifting 150 tons, as well as £20,000 on additional machinery and equipment. In 1905 Brown's established the
Coventry Ordnance Works joint venture with
Yarrow Shipbuilders and others. In 1909 the company bought a stake in
Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval.
World War I By the early 1900s, the Clydebank works had expanded to cover spread along Dumbarton Road, consisting of the East and West yards, which were separated by a fitting out basin, where once launched the hulls are fitted out with the aid of two cranes each capable of lifting 150 tons. The east yard contained five building slipways, each of which could accommodate the building of the largest battleship, with one slip long enough to build a ship of over . The west yard was used to build smaller ships such as destroyers. Associated with the shipyard was the engine works where the company built turbines and boilers both for its own ships and for other companies. Apart from a brief period in 1917, the works manager throughout the entire First World War was
Thomas Bell. He was knighted in 1918 for his efforts. Despite being an essential industry the works had difficulty obtaining suitable workers to build all the ships on its order books. In an attempt to reduce the labour shortage it employed women in a number of jobs under a scheme called "dilution" whereby it was agreed with the unions that once the war ended the women would give up their jobs. Throughout the war the company employed on average 10,000 workers at Clydebank works, of which 7,000 were in the shipyard and 3,000 in the engine works. In January 1918, 87 of these were women. To increase productively, throughout 1914–18 the company continually invested in new facilities and tools. In 1915 it introduced pneumatic riveting which needed only one riveter whereas previously two had been required. During the war, the company was almost exclusively occupied in building warships. With the exception of the battlecruisers
Repulse and
Hood, this warship building was concentrated on destroyers. By the end of the war, it had built more destroyers than any other British shipyard and set records for their building with taking seven months from keel laying to departure, six months and five and a half months. The company estimated that during the entire war period it produced a total of 205,430 tons of shipping and of machinery. but this consortium collapsed in 1971. The last ship to be built at the yard, the
Clyde-class bulk grain carrier , was completed in 1972. In 1972 UCS's liquidator sold the Clydebank shipyard to
Marathon Manufacturing Company.
Union Industrielle d'Entreprise (UIE) (part of the French
Bouygues group) bought the yard in 1980, using it to build
Jack-up and
Semi-submersible rigs for
North Sea oil fields. UIE closed the yard in 2001. and fitting-out basin. The new
Clydebank College campus is in the foreground, straddling the slipways of the old East Yard. The commercially successful John Brown Engineering division of the company, which made
pipelines and industrial
gas turbines and included other subsidiaries such as
Markham & Co., continued to trade independently until 1986, when the industrial conglomerate
Trafalgar House took it over. In 1996
Kvaerner bought Trafalgar House. It later was split, with
Kvaerner retaining some assets, including the Clydebank-based John Brown Engineering — which became Kvaerner Energy, and
Yukos buying John Brown Hydrocarbons and Davy Process Technology, both based in London. In 2000 Kvaerner Energy closed its gas turbine works in Clydebank with the loss of 200 jobs, finally ending the link between John Brown and Clydebank. The site was demolished in 2002. John Brown Hydrocarbons was sold to
CB&I in 2003 and renamed CB&I John Brown, and later CB&I UK Limited. A new
gas turbine servicing and maintenance company formed by former management of John Brown Engineering, headed by Duncan Wilson and other engineers from the Clydebank site, named John Brown Engineering Gas Turbines Ltd, was re-established in
East Kilbride in 2001.
Regeneration of the Clydebank site at Clydebank, next to the fitting-out basin of the former John Brown & Co. shipyard. A comprehensive regeneration plan for the site is being implemented by
West Dunbartonshire Council and
Scottish Enterprise. This includes making the
Clydebank waterfront more accessible to the public. Restoration of the historic
Titan Crane — built by
Sir William Arrol & Co. for the shipyard — was completed in 2007. A new campus for
Clydebank College was opened in August 2007. Regeneration plans also include improved infrastructure, modern offices, a light industrial estate and new housing, retail and leisure facilities. It was hoped that as part of the plan
Queen Elizabeth 2 would be returned to the city and river where she was built, but on 18 June 2007
Cunard Line announced that she would be sold to
Dubai as a floating hotel. ==Ships built by John Brown & Company==