Shipbuilding 1790 to 1899

Shipbuilding has long been one of the region's most important industries. In 1294 Newcastle built a galley for the King's fleet and ships were built at Sunderland from at least 1346, and at Stockton from at least 1470. The early ships were built of wood but in the nineteenth century there was a move towards building ships of iron.


Sunderland developed as a coal port but it was Sunderland's place as the largest shipbuilding town in the world that gave the town its fame. The first recorded shipbuilder was Thomas Menville at Hendon in 1346. By 1790 Sundertand was building around nineteen ships per year. It became the most important shipbuilding centre in the country in the 1830s and by 1840 there were 65 shipyards. Over 150 wooden vessels were built at Sunderland in 1850 when 2,025 shipwrights worked in the town. A further 2,000 were employed in related industries. Sunderland's first iron ships were built from 1852 and wooden shipbuilding ceased here in 1876. Sunderland shipbuilders included Austin and Son 1826, William Pickersgill 1851 and William Doxford 1840.


In 1678 Stockton was building ships of 200 burthen and Yarm had an early shipbuilding trade at around this time, but it was in the late eighteenth century that shipbuilding really began to develop. Between 1790 and 1805 Thomas Haw of Stockton was a builder of ships for the Napoleonic wars, but Middlesbrough shipbuilding did not begin until 1833 when a wooden sailing ship called The Middlesbro' was built. Teesside's first iron ship was a screw steamer called The Advance', built at South Stockton (Thornaby) in 1854, and Teesside's first steel was 'Little Lucy' built in 1858. One famous Teesside-built ship was the 377 feet long Talpore, built by Pearse and Co of Stockton in 1860. It was a troop ship for the River Indus, and was the world's largest river steamer at the time.








A Most early ships built on the Swan Hunter yard were smaller ships, like colliers and barges, but in 1898 it built its first ocean liner 'The Ultonia'. It would build a further 21 liners in the period 1898-1903. The most famous ship ever launched was undoubtedly The Mauretania', a Transatlantic ocean liner launched on 20th September 1906. The ship was 790 feet long with a beam of 88 ft and a gross tonnage of 31,938 tons. It carried 2000 passengers on its maiden voyage on 16 Nov 1907 and captured the Blue Ribband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic, a record held for twenty-two years.



CLOSURES 1909-1979



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