A Voyage Through Time

- a history of Yarrow’s shipbuilders

(Joint meeting with the Scottish Association for Metals).
In December Scottish Branch members heard Bill Mitchell, Sales Manager of BAE Naval Systems, give an interesting account of the Shipbuilding family, Yarrow.

Alfred Yarrow started his own shipyard in 1865 in the Isle of Dogs, London. Initially he built steam launches at a cost of £195, building 150 in the first 10 years. In 1875 he went on to build torpedo boats for the American Civil War. In the 1890s he built his first destroyer at a cost of £36,000.

By the end of the 1890s he decided to move to a larger dock along from his original dock before moving to a green field site in Glasgow in 1908 where he went on to build gun boats for the First World War. By this time Alfred’s son, Harold, joined the company and took over the running of it. The Second World War brought a boom in shipbuilding and Yarrow’s launched a ship every 10 weeks to help with the War.

By 1962 Sir Eric Yarrow was running the yard and in 1967 the company joined shipbuilders in the Upper Clyde to form the UCS. This was then nationalised in 1977 and they worked within this framework until privatisation in 1985 where it was sold to GEC-Marconi division. Another change of ownership beckoned in 1999, when the company became BAE Systems Marine. During this time the company continued to be world-renowned frigate and destroyer class builders.

Professor Margaret Stack, President of Scottish Association for Metals, gave the vote of thanks.