In 1891, the
Midland Railway, which already operated
Morecambe Harbour four miles to the north-east, gave notice of its intention to develop a new harbour at Heysham and appointed consulting engineers James Abernethy and his son to undertake a feasibility study of the project. The plan was for an enclosed dock accessed through a lock, but idea made no further progress. In 1895, a much larger Heysham port plan was put forward by Messrs James Abernethy & Son, in conjunction with the Midland Railway's chief engineer. This formed the basis of the harbour which was built, although there were many changes as work progressed and the full scheme was never completed. In 1896, an enabling act of Parliament, the
Midland Railway Act 1896 (
59 & 60 Vict. c. clxxxiii), was obtained for the construction of the harbour, with the contract for construction was let in July 1897. The project cost about £3 million. The first ship to dock at Heysham was the
Antrim, one of the ships that the Midland Railway had ordered for Heysham services. She arrived at the Heysham on 31 May 1904, following her delivery from the builders, John Brown of Clydebank.. The first passenger sailing was a day trip to
Douglas,
Isle of Man by the
Londonderry on the 13 August 1904. The south jetty was built in 1909 to reduce silt buildup at the harbour entrance. Plans from 1907 show that two jetties were originally planned, one on each side of the entrance, but a north jetty was never actually built. In 1941 a deep-water berth (Ocean Jetty) was built to the north-east of harbour entrance. This was to allow tankers which were too large for the port to berth at the new Trimpell refinery, which produced aviation fuel. Much of the fuel produced would have been for fighter aircraft stationed around Britain during
World War II. After the
Tranmere pipeline construction, the Ocean Jetty berth was rarely used until its demolition in 1976. With the grouping of the railways in 1923, Heysham Port passed into the
London, Midland and Scottish Railway. When the railways were nationalised in 1948, the port came under the
British Transport Commission, then the British Railways Board, and its shipping arm
Sealink. Sealink was sold by the government in 1984 to
Sea Containers. Heysham Port was acquired from Sea Containers by the
Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC) in May 2001. Then, in August 2005 the MDHC was bought by and merged with
Peel Ports Limited. ==Ships in operation==