A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Compared to shipyards, which are sometimes more involved with original construction, dockyards are sometimes more linked with maintenance and basing activities. The terms are routinely used interchangeably, in part because the evolution of dockyards and shipyards has often caused them to change or merge roles.
Woolwich Dockyard was an English naval dockyard along the river Thames at Woolwich in north-west Kent, where many ships were built from the early 16th century until the late 19th century. William Camden called it 'the Mother Dock of all England'. By virtue of the size and quantity of vessels built there, Woolwich Dockyard is described as having been 'among the most important shipyards of seventeenth-century Europe'. During the Age of Sail, the yard continued to be used for shipbuilding and repair work more or less consistently; in the 1830s a specialist factory within the dockyard oversaw the introduction of steam power for ships of the Royal Navy. At its largest extent it filled a 56-acre site north of Woolwich Church Street, between Warspite Road and New Ferry Approach; 19th-century naval vessels were fast outgrowing the yard, however, and it eventually closed in 1869. The former dockyard area is now partly residential, partly industrial, with remnants of its historic past having been restored.
Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham.
Admiral Sir Astley Cooper Key, was a Royal Navy officer. As a junior officer he saw action at the Battle of Vuelta de Obligado in November 1845 during the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata and took part at the Battle of Bomarsund in August 1854 and the Bombardment of Sveaborg in August 1855 during the Crimean War. He also went ashore with the naval brigade to take part in the Battle of Canton in December 1857 during the Second Opium War. He later commanded a specially-formed Baltic Fleet created in February 1878 to intimidate Russia from entering Constantinople during the closing stages of the Russo-Turkish War. He became First Naval Lord in August 1879 in which role he was primarily interested in administration and technology rather than strategy: he kept the cost of running the Navy within budgets, sanctioned the construction of six Admiral-class battleships and ensured the Navy was properly prepared for the Panjdeh Incident in 1885 when Russian forces seized Afghan territory at Panjdeh.
Royal Navy Dockyards were state-owned harbour facilities where ships of the Royal Navy were built, based, repaired and refitted. Until the mid-19th century the Royal Dockyards were the largest industrial complexes in Britain.
Sir William Henry White, was a prolific British warship designer and Chief Constructor at the Admiralty.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy. Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is located on the eastern shore of Portsmouth Harbour, north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight. Until the early 1970s, it was officially known as Portsmouth Royal Dockyard ; thereafter the term 'Naval Base' gained currency, acknowledging a greater focus on personnel and support elements alongside the traditional emphasis on building, repairing and maintaining ships. In 1984 Portsmouth's Royal Dockyard function was downgraded and it was formally renamed the 'Fleet Maintenance and Repair Organisation' (FMRO). The FMRO was privatized in 1998, and for a time, shipbuilding, in the form of block construction, returned. Around 2000, the designation HMS Nelson was extended to cover the entire base.
Fredrik Henrik af Chapman was a Swedish shipbuilder, scientist and officer in the Swedish navy. He was also manager of the Karlskrona shipyard 1782-1793. Chapman is credited as the world's first person to apply scientific methods to shipbuilding and is considered to be the first naval architect.
HMS Plumper was part of the 1847 programme, she was ordered on the 25 of April as a steam schooner from Woolwich Dockyard with the name Pincher. However, the reference Ships of the Royal Navy, by J.J. College, (c) 2020 there is no entry that associates this name to this build. The vessel was reordered on August 12 as an 8-gun sloop as designed by John Fincham, Master Shipwright at Portsmouth. Launched in 1848, she served three commissions, firstly on the West Indies and North American Station, then on the West Africa Station and finally in the Pacific Station. It was during her last commission as a survey ship that she left her most enduring legacy; in charting the west coast of British Columbia she left her name and those of her ship's company scattered across the charts of the region. She paid off for the last time in 1861 and was finally sold for breaking up in 1865.
The Royal Naval Academy was a facility established in 1733 in Portsmouth Dockyard to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders' intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to provide standardised training, education and admission. In 1806 it was renamed the Royal Naval College and in 1816 became the Royal Naval College and the School for Naval Architecture. It was closed as a training establishment for officer entrants in 1837.
James Inman (1776–1859), an English mathematician and astronomer, was professor of mathematics at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, and author of Inman's Nautical Tables.
Sir Anthony Deane FRS (1633–1721) was a 17th-century mayor of Harwich, naval architect, Master Shipwright and commercial shipbuilder, and Member of Parliament.
The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors (RCNC) is an institution of the British Royal Navy and Admiralty for training in naval architecture, marine, electrical and weapon engineering. It was established by Order in Council in August 1883, on the recommendation of the naval architect Sir William White. Its precursor was the Royal School of Naval Architecture, London.
The first School of Naval Architecture opened in 1811 in Portsmouth. The school was principally established to offer a deeper study of the principles of ship design than had traditionally been retained through the apprenticeship model. To this end, students were taught mathematics, science, drawing, history, geography and literature. In 1816, it joined the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth to become the Royal Naval College and the School for Naval Architecture. Political lobbying forced its closure in 1837. Divisions within the Navy had long been felt between those who saw educational pathways as key to progression within the Royal Navy and those who regarded family connections and patronage as the best means of advancement. Of the first School's closure, Reverend Joseph Woolley observed "that establishment produced men of accomplished skill and power in the application of sound theoretical principals to their professional work; but because they were treated with suspicion and dislike by the uneducated members of the profession, who unfortunately had too much influence at head quarters: the old cry of want of experience was raised against them, and the value of their services, were for many years--the best years of their lives--lost to the country."
The Reverend Joseph Woolley MA LLD FRAS (1817-1889) was a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a founding member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects.
Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events and ships have been associated with it.
Prof Francis Elgar FRS FRSE LLD, naval architect, born at Portsmouth on 24 April 1845, was eldest son of nine children of Francis Ancell Elgar, who was employed at Portsmouth dockyard, by his wife Susanna Chalkley.
Cockatoo Island Industrial Conservation Area is a heritage-listed protected area relating to the former Cockatoo Island Dockyard at Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour, New South Wales, Australia. It was added to the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004.
HMS Leander was a 50-gun frigate of the Royal Navy which saw service in the Crimean War.
Jeremiah Owen was a mathematician, naval architect and Chief Metallurgist to the Admiralty during the first half of the nineteenth century. Owen took part in the debates over the professionalization of naval architecture in the Royal Navy and was active in campaigns for Polish human rights in the 1830s. He his chiefly known for his scientific work on metals in the design of naval vessels.
United Kingdom 
Royal Navy 