Formation from merger of Laird Company and Cammell & Co. The Laird Company was founded by
William Laird, who had established the Birkenhead Iron Works in 1824. When he was joined by his son,
John Laird in 1828, their first ship was an iron barge. John realised that the techniques of making boilers could be applied to making ships. The company soon became pre-eminent in the manufacture of iron ships and also made major advances in propulsion. In 1860, John Laird was joined in the business by his three sons, renaming the company John Laird, Sons & Co. The sons continued the business after their father's death in 1874 as Laird Brothers. Johnson, Cammell & Co., later Charles Cammell & Co., was founded by
Charles Cammell and Henry and Thomas Johnson: it made, amongst many other metal products, iron wheels and rails for Britain's railways and was based in
Sheffield. In 1903 the businesses of Messrs. Cammell and Laird merged to create a company at the forefront of shipbuilding. This led to some of the workers occupying a partially built gas rig,
AV-1. 37 workers were later arrested, jailed and sacked for their roles in the protest. In 1986, it returned to the private sector as part of
Barrow-in-Furness-based
Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering (VSE). VSE and Cammell Laird were the only British shipyards capable of producing nuclear submarines. In 1993, it completed HMS
Unicorn (S43) – now .
Re-establishment and ship repair Part of the shipyard site was leased by the Coastline Group as a ship repair facility. Coastline eventually bought part of the shipyard and adopted the Cammell Laird name, before floating on the London stock exchange in 1997 and acquiring dockyards at
Teesside,
Tyneside and
Gibraltar. After experiencing financial difficulties, partly due to the late withdrawal from a £50 million refit contract for the cruise ship
Costa Classica cruise ship by
Costa Crociere, the company was forced to enter receivership in April 2001, and the
Birkenhead, Teesside and Tyneside shipyards owned by Cammell Laird shiprepair were acquired by the
A&P Shiprepair Group in 2001. Cammell Laird Gibraltar, the
Royal Dockyard facility in
Gibraltar, was disposed of through a local
management buyout.
Second rebirth as Cammell Laird Shiprepair A&P Group sold its Birkenhead subsidiary (A&P Birkenhead) to
Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders in 2005.
Peel Holdings, owners of the
Mersey Docks and Harbour Company and 50% owners of Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders, purchased the Cammell Laird shipyard site and surrounding land in January 2007, to facilitate the proposed
Wirral Waters development, although Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders continue to maintain a long-term lease on the shipyard facilities, which will form an integral part of the regeneration scheme. In 2007, it was announced that the occupiers of
Cammell Laird Dock, Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders, had acquired the rights to the Cammell Laird name. On 17 November 2008, Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders officially renamed itself Cammell Laird Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders Limited, stating that recent economic success had made the time right, and that "Cammell Laird is an internationally recognised brand which carries tremendous goodwill when bidding for contracts." In February 2008, it was announced that the company had won a £28m
Ministry of Defence contract to overhaul the
Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship . In January 2010, it was announced that Lairds had received a £44m order for the flight decks of the Royal Navy's new aircraft carrier . In May 2012, it was announced that complete shipbuilding was set to return to the yard with the awarding of preferred bidder status for two new car ferries for
Dunoon-based operator,
Western Ferries. Construction of and began in October 2012. In April 2014, the government authorised procurement of a
Royal Research Ship for the
British Antarctic Survey, at an estimated cost of £200 million. Cammell Laird won the construction contract in 2015. The vessel, named began sea trials in 2020; she took her maiden voyage to
Antarctica in November 2021. It was announced in October 2017 that Cammell Laird had struck a 'teaming agreement' with
BAE Systems to bid for Ministry of Defence contracts to build the Royal Navy's
Type 31e frigates. In 2018,
Red Funnel chose the shipyard to construct a £10m cargo ferry, . Construction of the ferry began with a formal
keel laying ceremony on 31 May and the vessel entered service a year later. In October 2018 it was announced that the yard had won 'Lot 3' of an MOD contract to maintain the four new of tankers for the RFA in a deal worth an estimated £262m. A new contract worth £357m was also announced that would see Cammell Laird continue to maintain the five RFA ships it currently supports. The yard was named as part of a consortium to build the Royal Navy's new
Type 26 Frigate in September 2023. BAE Systems are the primary contractor, but Cammell Laird will be used to build sections of HMS
Birmingham. ==In popular culture==