THE continuing controversy over the Scottish Government’s effective nationalisation of the troubled Ferguson Marine Engineering yard at Port Glasgow - the last commercial shipyard on the Clyde - has served as a reminder of the sheer presence the industry once had along the river.

One of the many companies that built ships was the Blythswood Shipbuilding Co, which was founded by Hugh H Macmillan and Donald Bremner in 1919. Its first vessel, an 11,000-tonne oil tanker, was delivered in 1922.

“The company experienced difficulties during the early years because of the inter-war slump,” records the 1992 book, The Shipbuilding Industry: A Guide to Historical Records. “In 1931-1932, the shipyard was empty for a period due to lack of orders and, in 1941, part of the yard was destroyed by German bombing raids. Nevertheless, the company continued trading.”

On Christmas Eve, 1957, just a few months after Macmillan’s death, the yard witnessed the launch (right, top) of the ore-carrying motorship, Edenmore. Yard bosses spoke of the need to modernise the yard so that it could build ships of up to 40,000 tonnes deadweight, presciently noting that this was a necessity when the UK industry would be in severe competition with the recently modernised shipyards of Europe and Japan.

Blythswood’s carried on for less than a decade: it ceased trading in 1964 and was acquired by Yarrow’s the following year.

The Clyde yards were, between them, responsible for some of the most famous ships ever built in Britain. The Queen Mary, built at the John Brown yard in Clydebank, was of course one of them. Crowds gathered on the Renfrew bank (right, bottom) one Sunday in early March, 1936, to admire her, a year and a half after her launch. “A moving masterpiece in steel,” said the Glasgow Herald, admiringly.

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Herald Diary

Much had changed for the worse on the Clyde, however, by the time the Norwegian shipping giant Kvaerner Industrier signalled its willingness, in April 1988, to take over British Shipbuilders’ Govan yard (main image, far right), the company’s last major yard in Scotland.

The Govan yard employed 2,000 people, but Kvaerner’s move caused a political outcry. Opposition MPs feared that the takeover would lead to the sale or closure of other plants, including the Clark Kincaid engine yard at Greenock. Donald Dewar, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, said the sale of Govan would leave doubts about its future. His fears were dismissed by Tory ministers, who argued that a sale would safeguard jobs.

At the time, the yard was building two container ships for the People’s Republic of China, but had lost a recent bid to build a third vessel. Govan workers had set up a fighting fund in response to fears that the Thatcher government was considering withdrawing all shipbuilding subsidies. The Herald observed that the Govan yard’s capacity to build liquid-gas carriers, and savings in manufacturing costs in Britain, were what had attracted he Norwegians’ interest.