Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, when that side of the business was separated and became part of the Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company.
Formation from merger of Laird Company and Cammell & Co.
1915 advertisement for Cammell Laird
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.[1] 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.[2]
Johnson 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.[3]
The layout of Cammell Laird's docks in 1909
In 1903 the businesses of Messrs. Cammell and Laird merged to create a company at the forefront of shipbuilding.[3] The company also built a number of vehicles for the London Underground. An order was placed for 20 trailer cars and 20 control trailer cars in 1919, which were known as 1920 Stock, and were the first tube cars to be built with doors operated by compressed air. They ran with converted French motor cars, originally built in 1906. The doors were fitted with a sensitive edge, designed to re-open the door if someone became trapped in it, but the mechanism was too sensitive, and was removed after an initial trial period.[4] The cars continued in operation until 1938, eight years after the motor cars were withdrawn, but following withdrawal, five cars became a mobile training school.[5] Cammell Laird also built a number of Standard Stock vehicles for the Underground. They were one of five builders approached to build a sample car to a general specification, which were put into service in February 1923, and three of the builders subsequently built production runs.[6] The company supplied 41 motor cars and 40 trailer cars in 1923, 25 control trailers in 1924, and a further 48 motor cars in 1925.[6]
In 1927, they built 160 passenger coaches for use in India. To transport them, Cammell Laird asked Watsons of Gainsborough to build five dumb barges. The coaches were loaded onto the barges at Clifton, near Nottingham on the River Trent, and towed in pairs downriver by a twin-screwed tug named Motorman, built by Henry Scarr of Hessle in 1925. They were taken to Hull for export.[7] In 1929, the railway rolling stock business of Cammell Laird was spun off and merged to become Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company.
Between 1829 and 1947, over 1,100 vessels of all kinds were launched from the Cammell Laird slipways into the River Mersey. Among the many famous ships made by the companies were the world's first steel ship, the Ma Roberts, built in 1858 for Dr. Livingstone's Zambezi expedition, CSSAlabama that was built in 1862 for the Confederate States of America, HMSCaroline that holds the record fastest build time of any significant warship (nine months from her keel being laid till her launch), the first all-welded ship, the Fullagar built in 1920, Cunard's second RMSMauretania, the aircraft carrier HMSArk Royal (1937) the battleship HMSPrince of Wales (1941) and the largest vessel to have been built for the Royal Navy up to that time, HMSArk Royal (1950).
In 1898, Cammell provided the half-inch armour plate used to fabricate the four Fowler Armoured Road Trains built during the Second Anglo-Boer War. The armoured road train was the first self-propelled, free-roaming, armoured military land vehicle ever built, predating the tanks of World War One by nearly two decades.
Post 1945 and 1993 closure
Cammell Laird's covered submarine building hall and berth cranes, 2006
The company was nationalised along with the rest of the British shipbuilding industry as British Shipbuilders in 1977. The yard was subject to a labour dispute in 1984 triggered by the yard making nearly 1,000 redundancies.[8] 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 HMCSWindsor.[1] After the end of the Upholder-class submarine building programme in 1993, the owners of Cammell Laird, VSE, announced the yard's closure. This was strongly opposed by the workforce through trade union campaigners including the GMB, led by communist firebrand official Barry Williams.[9]
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 £50million 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.[10] Cammell Laird Gibraltar, the Royal Dockyard facility in Gibraltar, was disposed of through a local management buyout.
A&P Group sold its Birkenhead subsidiary (A&P Birkenhead) to Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders in 2005.[11]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.[12]
In 2007, it was announced that the occupiers of Cammell Laird Dock, Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders, had acquired the rights to the Cammell Laird name.[13] 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."[13][14]
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 HMSQueen Elizabeth.[16]
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.[17] Construction of MVSound of Seil and MVSound of Soay began in October 2012.[18]
The shipbuilding hall with RRS Sir David Attenborough under construction
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.[21]
In 2018, Red Funnel chose the shipyard to construct a £10m cargo ferry, MVRed Kestrel. Construction of the ferry began with a formal keel laying ceremony on 31 May and the vessel entered service a year later.[22][23][24]
In October 2018 it was announced that the yard had won 'Lot 3' of an MOD contract to maintain the four new Tide class 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.[25]
The yard was named as part of a consortium to build the Royal Navy's new Type 26 Frigate in September 2023.[26] BAE System are the primary contractor, but Cammell Laird will be used to build sections of HMS Birmingham.
In popular culture
The shipyard is referenced in Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas as "Laird's of Liverpool".[27] (though it is located in Birkenhead, not Liverpool) Verne visited Birkenhead in 1859 and 1867 and states in the story that some of the iron plates for the Nautilus were made there.
The Mersey Ferry is a ferry service operating on the River Mersey in northwest England, between Liverpool to the east and Birkenhead and Wallasey on the Wirral Peninsula to the west. Ferries have been used on this route since at least the 12th century and continue to be popular for both local people and visitors.
Birkenhead is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; It was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 88,818.
RFA Fort Rosalie was the lead ship of her class of Royal Fleet Auxiliary fleet replenishment ships. Fort Rosalie was originally named RFA Fort Grange, but was renamed in May 2000 to avoid confusion with the now-decommissioned RFA Fort George. On 31 March 2021, the ship was withdrawn from service.
The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC), formerly the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MDHB), owns and administers the dock facilities of the Port of Liverpool, on the River Mersey, England. These include the operation of the enclosed northern dock system that runs from Prince's Dock to Seaforth Dock, in the city of Liverpool and the dock facilities built around the Great Float of the Wirral Peninsula, located on the west side of the river.
The Wirral Peninsula, known locally as the Wirral, is a peninsula in North West England. The roughly rectangular peninsula is about 15 miles (24 km) long and 7 miles (11 km) wide, and is bounded by the Dee Estuary to the west, the Mersey Estuary to the east, and Liverpool Bay to the north.
Birkenhead Priory is in Priory Street, Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. It is the oldest standing building on Merseyside. The site comprises the medieval remains of the priory itself, the priory chapter house, and the remains of St Marys church. All three are recorded in the National Heritage List for England, though at different grades.
John Laird was a British shipbuilder and key figure in the development of the town of Birkenhead. He was the elder brother of Macgregor Laird. He was one of the first to use iron in the construction of ships.
Hamilton Square is a town square in Birkenhead, Wirral, England. The Georgian square, which was designed by Edinburgh architect James Gillespie Graham, has the most Grade I listed buildings outside London. It is named after the family of the wife of Scottish shipbuilder William Laird.
Woodside is an area of Birkenhead in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is situated opposite Liverpool Pier Head across the River Mersey.
Rock Ferry is an area of Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Administratively it is a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the county of Cheshire. At the 2011 Census, the population was 14,298.
Appledore Shipbuilders is a shipbuilder in Appledore, North Devon, England.
Gibdock is a shipyard in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. It formerly operated as a Royal Navy Dockyard.
The Grayson Rollo and Clover shipyard was a ship repair and dry dock facility based at Birkenhead, on the Wirral Peninsula, England. It was situated on the River Mersey between the former Cammell Laird yard and Woodside Ferry.
William Laird was a Scottish shipbuilder and developer who was responsible for what later became the Cammell Laird shipyard, and for starting the substantial development of its adjoining town, Birkenhead, on the Wirral in England.
'MV Snowdrop is a Mersey Ferry in operation on the River Mersey, England. From launch until a major refit in 2003, she was named MV Woodchurch.
A&P Group Ltd is the largest ship repair and conversion company in the UK, with three shipyards located in Hebburn, Middlesbrough and Falmouth. The company undertakes a wide variety of maintenance and repair work on commercial and military ships with projects ranging from a two-day alongside repair period through to multimillion UK pound conversion projects lasting for a year or more.
Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders was a British shiprepair company based in Birkenhead on the River Mersey.
St Clare John Byrne (1831-1915) was a British naval architect, who specialized in the design of luxury yachts during the late Victorian and early Edwardian period.
MV Sound of Soay is a car and passenger ferry, operated by Western Ferries on the upper Clyde between Gourock and Dunoon, Scotland.
References
Bruce, J Graeme (1968). Tube Trains Under London. London Transport Board.
Taylor, Mike (2006). Tugs and towing barges on the Humber Waterways. Tempus Publishing. ISBN978-0-7524-3804-7.
Further reading
Johnston, Ian; Buxton, Ian (2013). The Battleship Builders - Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships (Hardback). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN978-1-59114-027-6.
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£94.437 million (2021)
-£4.4 million (2021)
