As Liverpool was developing and prospering with the Industrial Revolution, William Laird arrived as a young man and began purchasing land at Birkenhead, on the more deprived side of the Mersey.
He put a boiler works there that became the Birkenhead Iron Works and built his first vessel, a 90ft iron lighter for the Irish Inland Steam Navigation Company in 1829.
Such were the beginnings of the Cammell Laird shipyard, which went on to become the largest employer in Birkenhead, its huge success bringing massive social and economic benefits to the town.
By the start of the 20th Century, the UK Admiralty, a major Laird customer, decided that it was preferable for one contractor to be totally responsible for the complete construction of naval vessels.
This led Vickers to merge with Maxim, Armstrong & Whitworth, while the Lairds joined with the Sheffield firm of Charles Cammell, which had for decades been producing armour plating used by the Lairds in the building of naval vessels. The merged company was named Cammell Laird and Co Ltd, with William Laird's grandson J MacGregor Laird as chairman.
During WW2, the yard built 106 naval vessels, averaging one delivery every 20 days, and completed repairs on another 120 ships. With the merchant fleet decimated by war's end, the yard successfully adjusted its production to merchant vessels as dramatic fleet replacement programmes got underway.
By the 1960s, with orders thinning, the yard sought to modernise and rationalise, introducing their 'Selected Six' standard ships, designed to be built to a high standard at a competitive cost. Ship owners were learning to ask for finance and the yard had to take on its own qualified financial specialists. Polaris submarine contracts enabled the yard, employing 11,400 people by 1969, to reorganise, rationalise and renew its facilities and infrastructure.
The yard struggled through financial reconstruction and then nationalisation in the 1970s but the collapse of the Soviet Union brought a reduction in orders for a yard that had become somewhat specialised in warships. A decision to change to mixed yard status, enabling it to tender for commercial contracts and apply for EU grant aid only delayed the inevitable and the Birkenhead yard ceased trading as Cammell Laird in July 1993.
Author Ian Collard has lived in the Wirral all his life and observed much of the yard's activity firsthand, including the launch of many illustrious ships such as the Windsor Castle . This volume, with some 160 captioned photo graphs recalling the vast and varied output of Cammell Laird, will bring pleasure to shipping enthusiasts alongside bittersweet memories of an era when British shipbuilding was dominant on the world stage.
Cammell Laird
By Ian Collard.
Published by Tempus Publishing.
ISBN 0 7524 3267 2.
Paperback, 128 pages
Price £12.99.
