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| The Only Known Image Of The Troop Carrier HMS Birkenhead |
The Cammell Laird shipyard started life as a boiler
making company known as the Birkenhead Ironworks. The company was owned by Scot, William Laird (1780 - 1841), who moved to Birkenhead from his native Greenock in Scotland in 1810 in order to set up a rope making firm.
In 1822 William set up a steamship company with
partners William Hamilton and John Forsyth.
In 1829 his
son, solicitor's clerk John Laird (1805 - 1874) talked his father into
manufacturing ships made from iron, resulting in John Laird becoming a pioneer
of the iron built ship.
John Laird, who was the M.P for Birkenhead from 1861
until his death in 1874 was also instrumental in the rejuvenation of the town
of Birkenhead, which in those days was just a river side village, where he
commissioned the building of a church, a hospital, an arts school and several
housing projects, many of which still bare his name today.
The father and son's first shipyard, William Laird
& Son, was situated at Wallasey Pool, which is an arm of the River Mersey
situated just outside Birkenhead.
Their first ship was a sixty foot prefabricated iron
lighter which was built for the Irish Inland Navigation Company which was
launched in 1829.
In 1857, sixteen years after the death of his William,
John Laird bought a new twenty acre shipyard at Tranmere.
When John retired in 1861, in order to devote more
time to his parliamentary work, the shipyard was taken over by his three sons,
William, John and Henry.
In 1903, twenty nine years after the death of John
senior, the company merged with a Sheffield steel making company owned by
Charles Cammell, which resulted in the beginning of the world famous ship
building company, Cammell - Laird, which continued to build hundreds of ships
until it’s closure in 1993.
Several of these ships went on to become quite famous
for a variety of reasons, many of which are listed below;
Aircraft Carriers
The shipyard at Birkenhead built several aircraft
carriers for use by the British Navy, including HMS Venerable built in 1943 and
the first two HMS Ark Royals in 1939 and in 1950.
The first Ark Royal was sunk in the Mediterranean Sea
in 1941 and the second became a T.V star after featuring in the British
television documentary series ' Sailor ' in the 1970's.
Battleships
The shipyard was instrumental in the
building of iron war ships, many of which were built for the British Navy,
these warships included the HMS Royal Oak built in 1892, HMS Glory built in
1899, HMS Audacious built in 1901 and HMS Achilles built in 1932. However the
most famous one of these warships was the HMS Prince of Wales, a vessel which
was instrumental in the sinking of the German Battleship the Bismarck in
1941.
Cruise Liners
The shipyard at Birkenhead is probably most famous for
the building of it's cruise liners than any other ship, although it made
considerably less of these than any other ship.The shipyard built liners for
several of the large cruise companies, including the Cunard Line, which
commissioned the building of The Cephalonia in 1882, the Samaria in 1920 and
the second ship to be named Mauretania built in 1939.
The company also built ships for the Union Castle
Line, the most famous of which was the Windsor Castle built in 1960, which was
used as a mail ship for use in South Africa.
HMS Birkenhead
Two Cammell - Laird ships were built bearing the name
HMS Birkenhead.
The first vessel was a steam frigate launched in 1845,
originally under the name of HMS Vulcan.
In 1851 she was overhauled into a troopship and
renamed HMS Birkenhead.
On the 25th of February, 1852 with 643 men, women and
children and nine horses on board, she set sail from Simonstown in South Africa
on the last leg of a journey bound for Algoa Bay on South Africa's east coast.
At 02.11hours on the 26th of February HMS Birkenhead
struck a concealed rock at a place called Danger Point situated off the coast
of Gansbaal.
Her captain, Robert Salmond, ordered all
the women and children into the ship's cutter and had the horses thrown into
the sea - in the hope that they would swim to shore. Ten minutes later, the
ship struck the rock a second time tearing the ship's bottom in half.
Captain Salmond immediately ordered those that could
swim to abandon ship and swim for land, but a Colonel Seton ordered his military
personnel to ' stand fast' realising that letting the men jump
overboard and that they would make strait for the cutter, would seriously
endanger the lives of the women and children.
Colonel Seton's men obeyed him and did
not move even as the ship broke up and began to sink around them.
This horrific event led to two things - the naval
protocol of women and children first when faced with helpless circumstances,
which became known as the Birkenhead Drill, and the building of a lighthouse at Danger Point in 1895.
Of the 643 passengers 193 men survived, 8 of the nine
horses managed to swim to shore and all the women and children were
rescued.
The second HMS Birkenhead was a light
cruiser launched in 1915, which, along with her sister ship HMS Chester, was
originally built for the Greek Navy, but ended up being bought by the British
Navy. These two sister ships were part of the light squadron of the Grand Fleet
and both took part at the Battle of Jutland in June of 1916.
This particular HMS Birkenhead was then sold for scrap
in 1921.
Merchant Ships
Several merchant ships were built at Birkenhead,
particularly oil tankers.
The most famous of these oil tankers was the
pioneering Shell tanker, Sepia built in 1956, which was the first vessel to be propelled by a gas turbine in the world.
Preserved Ships
Several of the Birkenhead war horses have been
preserved for prosperity and can be seen in various locations around the world.
These include the turret ship, Huascar built in 1865
for the Peruvian Navy, which now takes pride of place in the Chilean Naval base
at Talcahuano, the training vessel, Presidente Sarmiento built in 1897, which
is now a museum ship berthed in Buenos Aries in Argentina and the Corvette
Antarctic explorer, ARA Uruguay built in 1874, which is still in use by
the Argentinian Navy.
River Steamships
The company started life building river steamships, mainly
for use on and around the lakes and rivers of Great Britain.The most famous of
these steamships was the Ma Robert, built for African explorer Dr David
Livingstone (1813 - 1873) for use on during his travels along the Zambezi River.
Submarines
Submarines were also built at the shipyard, including HMS
Unicorn, HMS Reknown, HMS Revenge and the most famous one of them all, HMS
Conqueror, who sank the Argentinian warship the ARA General Belgrano in 1982
during the Falklands conflict killing 323 of it's crew.
Vessels Still in Service
Although the shipyard in Birkenhead officially ceased business in 1993, there are still quite a few of it's ships sailing the seas to this day. These include the three RFA support tankers HMS Appleleaf, HMS Brambleleaf and HMS Orangeleaf, the two destroyers HMS Liverpool and HMS Campbletown, the WWI Cruiser HMS Caroline and the submarine HMS Onyx.
Vessels Under Restoration
Two former Birkenhead built ships have been found
locally and are presently undergoing restoration at their home port.
They are the former tug boat the Daniel Adamson built
for use on the Manchester Ship canal in 1903 and the Isle of Man cruise steamer
the Manxman.
Warships
Iron built warships were becoming big business in the
latter part of the nineteenth century where the Laird & Sons shipyard began
to make warships not only for the British Navy but for foreign navies too.
Their list of warships include HMS Scorpion, HMS
Wivern, HMS Captain and the steam destroyer HMS Rattlesnake, but the most
famous of them all was the CSS Alabama, built for the American Confederate
Government in 1862.
The CSS Alabama terrorised international waters all
over the world during it's seven expeditionary raids over a two year period.
On the eleventh of June 1864 the CSS Alabama made her
way to Cherbourg in France for a much needed and long awaited refit. As she
entered the English Channel she was met by the Union Warship the USS Kearsarge.
The two ships engaged in a battle (instigated by the
CSS Alabama) in which the CSS Alabama was sunk and her survivors rescued by the
enemy ship the USS Kearsarge. 