Following up from last weeks HMS Defender, I've found pictures of a ship called Defender although its not a Royal Navy ship. This is a 1915 cargo vessel, built by Connell & Co. in Scotstoun. It was built for T & J Harrisons who were a merchant shipping company operating out of Liverpool. Information about the Defender's career as well as details about...
Once you start looking for them, there are actually a few engineering, railway or shipping archive related stories each week. On a Monday, I'll round up any I can find that might be of interest here: 18th century ship logs used for climate change research Launch of HMS Defender A triumph of Victorian engineering - the anniversary of Loch Katrine aquaduct (exhibition, news article and...
We've been doing some moving around this week so the scanner is still out of operation. This means that I can't share the photos of earlier HMS Defenders that Dan McDonald took. However, once we're all sorted out I'll get them up so we can compare the different defenders. The upside of this is that I have a new office and we're getting...
As I said yesterday I was fortunate enough to get tickets to attend my first ship launch, that of HMS Defender at the BVT Surface Fleet yard in Govan. This visit helped me to get a sense of the scales involved in building a ship this size and gave me some background context to the work that we do. The Ballast Trust has processed...
At this very moment I should be witnessing the launch of HMS Defender from the Govan yard of BVT Surface Fleet. image from here HMS Defender is a Type 45 Destroyer. It is the eighth ship in the Royal Navy to bear the name Defender, the first was built in 1797 at Limehouse. It is the the third Destroyer named Defender to have been built on the...
Today's image is a pretty poor quality one of Saltcoats Harbour. I would have scanned in a better one but we've spent the whole day moving the office around and the scanner isn't set up again yet. Saltcoats Harbour was built by Robert Cunninghame primarily for the export of his Uncle's Stevenston coal to Ireland. The outer pier was added around 1800, at...
There have been several news articles about the City of Adelaide / Carrick over the last few days. This is because of Peter Maddison's on-ship protest to save it from destruction and to try and arrange a relocation to Sunderland. News articles: Sunderland Echo BBC The Scotsman The ship was built in 1864, before the Cutty Sark and was used to transport emigrants...
This week's photo was taken by Dan nearly 87 years ago to the day on 7 October 1922. It is of the sailing ship the Clackmannanshire. It was built in 1884 by Robert & Co. in Port Glasgow for a company called Thomas Law & Co. in Glasgow. She was scrapped in 1923, only a year after this picture was taken. ...
The photo this week is one of Dan McDonald's most recognisable images as it was used on the back cover of one of his publications. The Turk was built in 1929 by J&J Hay of Kirkintilloch whose archives are in East Dunbartonshire (details here) ...
