Cammell Laird, one of the most famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century.

History[link]

Founding of the business[link]

1915 Advertisement for Cammell Laird.

The 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 made major advances in propulsion.

In 1903 the businesses of Messrs. Cammell and Laird merged to create a company at the forefront of shipbuilding.^[2] Johnson Cammell & Co. had been 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.^[2] In 1929, the railway rolling stock business of Cammell Laird was spun off and merged to become Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company Ltd.

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, CSS Alabama that was built in 1862 for the Confederate States of America, HMS Caroline (1914) 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 Mauretania of 1939, the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (1937) and the largest vessel, so far, to have been built for the Royal Navy HMS Ark 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[link]

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. In 1986, it returned to the private sector as part of Barrow-in-Furness-based Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd (VSEL). VSEL and Cammell Laird were the only British shipyards capable of producing nuclear submarines. In 1993, it completed HMS Unicorn (S43) – now HMCS Windsor (SSK 877) – that to this day that is the last new-build ship completed at the yard.^[1] After the end of the Upholder class submarine building programme in 1993, the owners of Cammell Laird, VSEL, announced the yard's closure.

Re-establishment and Ship Repair[link]

Part of the shipyard site was subsequently 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 failure of a £50 million Costa Classica cruise ship refit contract with Costa Crociere, the company was forced to enter receivership in April 2001, and the Birkenhead, Teeside and Tyneside shipyards owned by Cammell Laird shiprepair were subsequently acquired by the A&P Shiprepair Group during 2001.^[3] Cammell Laird Gibraltar, the Royal Dockyard facility in Gibraltar, was disposed of through a local management buyout.

Second rebirth as Cammell Laird Shiprepair[link]

A Fort Victoria class replenishment oiler undergoing refit work at Cammell Laird, 2009.

A&P Group eventually sold its Birkenhead subsidiary (A&P Birkenhead) to Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders in 2005.^[4] 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.^[5]

In 2007, it was announced that the current occupiers of Cammell Laird Dock, Northwestern Shiprepairers & Shipbuilders, had acquired the rights to the Cammell Laird name.^[6] 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."^[6][7]

In February 2008 it was announced that the company had won a £28m Ministry of Defence contract to overhaul the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship RFA Fort Rosalie.^[8]

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 HMS Queen Elizabeth.^[9]

In May 2012 it was announced that complete shipbuilding is set to return to the yard with the awarding of preffered bidder status to build two new car ferries for Dunoon based operator Western Ferries.^[10]

Ships built by Cammell Laird[link]

Ships built by Cammell Laird included:

This transport-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

See also[link]

• Mersey-built ships
• Metro Cammell
• Cammell Laird Gibraltar
• Grayson Rollo and Clover Docks

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Cammell Laird & Co Limited

• Cammell Laird Ship Repairers and Shipbuilders LimitedOfficial site
• Cammell Laird: Shipbuilders to the World (1824 - 1993)
• Wirral Archives: Cammell Laird
• Cammell Laird Football Club
• 1909 Map of Cammell Laird Docks

v t e CSS Alabama Leadership & Men Raphael Semmes · James Dunwoody Bulloch · Irvine Bulloch · John Laird Sons and Company Expeditionary Raids Eastern Atlantic · New England · Gulf of Mexico · South Atlantic · South African · Indian Ocean · South Pacific Battles Action off Galveston Light · Battle of Cherbourg List of ships of the Confederate States Navy

Anthony 'Tony' Sullivan (born 18 January 1949) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for Melbourne in the VFL during the 1970s.

Sullivan played as a defender and was an important member of the Melbourne team in what was an unsuccessful era for the club. He made his debut in 1967 but never really established himself in the side until the 1970s. The 1979 season was his last in the VFL.

External links[link]

• Tony Sullivan's statistics from AFL Tables