All the way to the Bank – An economic history of the Clyde

Jon Addison, Curator, Scottish Maritime Museum provided a fascinating scene-setting presentation looking back at the Clyde’s role in shaping the development of the economy and communities of the Firth of Clyde.

Please click here for the full presentation or read on for a summary of the talk.

The Economic story of the Clyde starts with Molendinar Burn – a small tributary flowing into the river Clyde, creating a shallow point where the river was easy to ford. This led to St Kentigern establishing an early Christian Community there in the 6th century. This became a trading point, a local manufacturing centre, and a centre for commercial activity and was later to grow to become Glasgow. It is the location of this economic centre that has shaped the subsequent history of the area.

In the Middle Ages Irvine, Saltcoats and Fairlie were the main coastal ports, and expensive goods were transported using packhorses and carts overland. More mundane goods such as timber or corn were landed in small shallow-drafted boats at Broomielaw, where a quay was built in 1660. The Clyde at this time was not navigable by large vessels.

By the Mid 17th Century increasingly prosperous Glasgow merchants owned 12 seagoing vessels, trading in coal, herring, paper, timber and butter, but none were able to come into the port where they were owned.

As a deepwater port could not be established in Glasgow, in 1669 the town council purchased land at Newark, 18 miles from the town. The port became known first as Newport, and then Port Glasgow.

The union of the crowns of Scotland and England January 1707 did not initially lead to immediate economic prosperity for the Clyde area – in fact there was something of a slump. However the treaty gave one large advantage to Scottish merchants, which the astute were quick to take advantage of; they could now trade freely with the former English (now British) colonies. Tobacco from the West Indies, and particularly from America, became the most profitable commodity. The traders who became rich through this trade became known as the Tobacco Lords.

From 1760 large wooden trading ships began to be built on the Clyde, at Greenock. However it was not the building of wooden sailing ships that made the Clyde a shipbuilding hub, but the dual developments of steam propulsion and iron hulls.

From 1752 to 1768 a number of attempts were made to solve the Clyde’s silting problem. The solution was implemented in 1768 by the engineer John Golborne, who used the river’s own power to clear the channel by using a series of training walls and dykes.

Ironically, just at the point at which the navigation improvements so long needed began to be made, the Tobacco trade collapsed. The 1776 Declaration of US independence meant that some tobacco fortunes were lost overnight. However those merchants who had been foresighted enough to diversify managed to survive. Cotton was now king, and trade in raw cotton and the manufacture of cotton goods flourished in Glasgow and around. This trade continued into the 19th century.

Conflicts with America, The Netherlands, Spain and France provided both a financial windfall for Scottish Privateering Captains, and rapidly changing trading fortunes for traders.

The next crucial event to influence the economic history of the region was the development of steam navigation. In 1812 that the steamer Comet made her historic trip down the Clyde in record time. After this many more paddle steamers were built and operated on the Clyde.

Robert Napier © Scottish Maritime Museum

Glasgow was not yet the shipbuilding centre it was later to become, but was now gaining more and more infrastructure for iron founding and engineering. The shipbuilder Robert Napier can take much credit for the rise of the Clyde as a major shipbuilding centre. Napier began producing steam engines and designing ships, and in 1841 he expanded into iron hull production. Robert Napier and Sons made a name for themselves with innovative designs and extremely high standards.

The other great innovation of the time was the development of iron hulls. The first iron-hulled ship in Scotland was Vulcan, a Forth and Clyde canal passage boat, built by Thomas Wilson at Faskine on the Monkland canal a few miles from Glasgow. Iron Steamships gradually became more frequently built, and the use of iron encouraged the development of other industries. The Clyde region was ideally suited to iron and coal based industries, and soon iron products joined coal as major export commodities.

Iron shipbuilding also had a great impact on the workforce. Riveters were highly skilled, and were able to use this status to become the best paid tradesmen on the river, remaining this way until the 1920s. Other important innovations included screw propulsion, the compound engine and the triple expansion engine.

The growing shipbuilding industries on the Clyde also gave rise to a culture of innovation. Glasgow university had a great impact on the training of future innovators. The world’s first commercial ship model experiment tank – the Denny Ship Model Experiment Tank at Dumbarton was set up in 1882, and other tanks followed – John Brown, 1904 and Glasgow University, 1960s. By 1880 there were 70 shipbuilding establishments on the Clyde.

The development of the Steam turbine was another innovation, allowing the building of some of the largest and greatest ships to be seen on the Clyde. It was the use of this technology that allowed engines powerful enough to propel monsters such as Lusitaina (1906).

The 20th Century saw one of the greatest periods of change in the area. The early years of the century saw huge growth, with the great ships of the 1930s and 1940s being built. A huge tonnage of vessels and cargoes were lost in World War II, and Britain’s shipyards shouldered most of the burden of replacing this loss. However the industry was exhausted, equipment outmoded, and materials rationed by the government.

1946 to 1962 saw the last peacetime shipbuilding boom on the Clyde. The development of containerisation meant that the Clyde could no longer cope with the huge ships that were now needing berthing space and draft. In addition, regressive and autocratic management practices and intransigent unions clashed, preventing the industry from keeping up with their competition. The 1964 labour government intervened, amalgamating shipyards to form Upper Clyde and Lower Clyde Shipbuilders. However the decline was impossible to halt. Scott-Lithgow’s launch of the semi-submersible drilling rig Ocean Alliance in 1987 was effectively the last large volume launch on the Clyde.

Today there are two remaining shipyards on the river – BAE Systems Naval Ships (Formerly Yarrows) and Fergusons. Almost none of the infrastructure of the industry that once provided Glasgow’s lifeblood remains. However as the history of the Clyde shows, this is not the first slump in fortunes to be experienced on the river. The Clyde’s fortunes may change once more.

For further information, contact the Scottish Maritime Museum on 01294 278283 or go to www.scottishmaritimemuseum.org