THE order books were full at the shipyards on the Clyde and elsewhere when, in July 1936, Lady Dunlop (above) launched the Queen Adelaide, a cargo motorship built at the Barclay, Curle yard at Whiteinch. It was shaping up as the Clyde’s best year for launches since 1930.
“Events of the past few days,” said the Glasgow Herald, “have made July a notable month in Scottish shipbuilding, and the outlook is now most satisfactory. In view of the important contracts recently booked and the work in immediate prospect, there should not be much unemployment among Clyde shipyard workers after the autumn.” The big event had been the placing of an order with John Brown’s yard for No.552 - a sister ship to the Queen Mary. (The Queen Elizabeth would be launched in September 1938). Local yards had also received orders for three large motor tankers, and further orders for mercantile vessels were in sight.
But the buoyancy of the yards owed something to the government’s rearmament programme. The Clyde, with two dozen warships already on order, was expecting to receive further contracts for part of the state’s 1936 programme. And contracts for the cruisers, destroyers and other craft were likely to be forthcoming, as part of the government’s 1938 spending estimates.
“It appears,” the Herald reported, “that there will be a general acceleration of warship construction, in accordance with the government’s rearmament plans.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here