A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



miles of railway within the works, and twelve 

 locomotives are constantly at work conveying 

 materials from one department to another. 



The competition of the newly opened-up 

 Midland coalfields was seriously affecting the 

 staple industry of Northumberland and Durham 

 when Charles Palmer opened his shipyards, and 

 in order to counteract this new competition he 

 designed an iron screw steamer, the John Bowes, 

 having a carrying capacity of 650 tons, which, 

 although launched on 30 June, 1852, is still 

 afloat under the name of the Transit, and is 

 owned by a Swedish firm. It is, however, 

 chiefly as a builder of warships that Palmers' 

 Company is noted. They launched their first 

 warship, H.M.S. Terror, during the Crimean 

 War ; she had a displacement of 2,000 tons, was 

 three-decked, and mounted twenty guns of the 

 largest calibre. She was built in three months, 

 900 men being employed, for the government 

 would brook no delay. The substitution of rolled 

 for forged plates accounts for the short time in 

 which the ship was built. The firm have built 

 sixty-nine warships for the government, consist- 

 ing of a troopship, the Jumna ; ten battleships, 

 Terror, Defence, Cerberus, Gorgon, Swiftsure, 

 Triumph, Resolution, Revenge, Russell, Lord Nelson; 

 ten cruisers, twelve gunboats, twenty-five torpedo 

 boat destroyers, and ten torpedo miners. 18 The 

 Lord Nelson is the largest battleship yet launched 

 in the north of England. Length, 410 ft. ; 

 beam, 79 ft. 6 in. ; draught, 27 ft. ; displace- 

 ment, 16,500 tons ; horse-power, 16,750; speed, 

 1 8 knots ; maximum coal capacity, 18,000 tons ; 

 primary guns, four 12-inch and ten 9'2-inch ; 

 cost, ^1,616,083. It was launched on 4 Sep- 

 tember, 1906. 



At Hebburn on Tyne Messrs. R. W. Haw- 

 thorn Leslie & Co., a firm celebrated for their 

 Russian connexion, have their shipbuilding yards. 

 Of their first seventeen vessels, eleven were built 

 for Russia. They make a special feature of tank 

 steamers for the carriage of oil in bulk, and their 

 vessels for the Australian and New Zealand 

 chilled-meat trade are well known. In 1905 

 they launched six vessels of an average gross 

 tonnage of 4,809. 



In the report to Queen Elizabeth, three 

 ships are given as belonging to South Shields, 

 called the Uswen, the Edward, and the John of 

 Shields, belonging to John Bowmaker, William 

 Lawson, and Edward Kitchin. In addition 

 there were six boats, or cobbles, all occupied in 

 fishing. 19 



The shipping of South Shields was long hin- 

 dered by the repressive policy of Newcastle, 20 

 but early in the eighteenth century Robert Wallis 

 successfully defied the authority of Newcastle 



18 Palmer Rec. Oct. 1 906. 



19 S.P. Dom. Eliz. Addenda, loc. cit. 



w R. Gardiner, England's Grievance Discovered, 

 1655. 



and opened shipyards there. 21 Fryer's map of 

 1773 gives only two shipyards. Hutchinson, 

 writing in 1787, says that forty years ago not 

 more than four ships belonged to the town, but 

 that in 1781 eleven ships were built and launched 

 there. 22 Bailey, writing in 1809, says there 

 were four shipbuilding yards with docks adjoin- 

 ing, one shipbuilding yard without a dock, and 

 seven boatbuilding yards. 23 The petition to the 

 queen asking for incorporation in 1850 says that 

 South Shields possessed graving docks and patent 

 slipways capable of accommodating twenty-three 

 ships at one time for repairs, and in addition 

 fourteen yards for the building of ships. 



Mr. Marshall was the pioneer iron shipbuilder 

 at South Shields. In 1839 the Star, apparently 

 the first iron Tyneside vessel, and certainly 

 among the first twenty iron vessels in the world, 

 was built by him. It was intended for the pas- 

 senger and towing trade on the Tyne. He also 

 built the first iron screw steamer in the north 

 of which there is any official account. 24 The 

 vessel was built to the order of the Bedlington 

 Coal Company, in order to convey loaded coal 

 wagons from Blyth to the colliers in Shields 

 harbour. It failed to fulfil the purpose for which 

 it was built, and was turned into an ordinary 

 cargo vessel. The Russians sank it in the Baltic 

 during the Crimean War. It is owing to this 

 lack of success that the Q.E.D. screw steam 

 collier, built by Mr. Coates at Walker's Quay, 

 and fitted with a 20 h.-p. engine by Hawthorn, 

 is known as the first vessel of this class. The 

 arrival of the Q.E.D, at Rotherhithe caused an 

 amount of excitement which certainly warrants 

 the idea that it was a pioneer. The Illustrated 

 London News contains a long account of it, and 

 the description ends with the confident hope 

 ' that the time is not far distant when our ships 

 of the line will be fitted with engines and screw 

 in a somewhat similar manner.' 25 



South Shields early entered the steamship 

 building trade, but the boats were of small size, 

 about fifty tons ; by 1844 twenty-eight of these 

 were afloat ; as the total number of steamers 

 owned on the Tyne then only reached 135, 

 South Shields had evidently done yeoman service 

 in this pioneer trade. 26 



When Mr. Marshall retired, this early ship- 

 building yard was taken over by Mr. J. Read- 

 head about the middle of last century ; he had 

 been engineer to Mr. Marshall, and in partner- 

 ship with Mr. John Softley, another employee, 

 took over the business. The firm stopped work- 

 ing during the great depression in shipbuilding, 

 but Mr. Readhead reopened the yards without 



81 G. B. Hodgson, Borough of South Shields, 320. 

 " W. Hutchinson, Hist, of Dur. ii, 483. 

 18 J. Bailey, op. cit. 295. " Lloyd's Reg. 1843. 



" lllus. Lond. News, 28 Sept. 1844. 

 16 Lloyd's Reg. 1843-4; cf. G. B. Hodgson, op. 

 cit. 324. 



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