Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited, often referred to simply as "Palmers", was a Britishshipbuilding company. The company was based in Jarrow, County Durham, in north-eastern England, and had operations in Hebburn and Willington Quay on the River Tyne.
A Reed water tube boiler built by Palmers, as used in their torpedo boat destroyersA triple expansion steam engine built in Palmers' engine works, as used in their torpedo boat destroyers
By 1902, Palmers' base at Jarrow occupied about 100 acres (41 hectares) and included 0.75 miles (1.2 kilometres) of the southern bank of the River Tyne, and employed about 10,000 men and boys.[8] In 1910, Sir Charles Palmer's interest in the business was acquired by Lord Furness who, as Chairman, expanded the business by acquiring a lease over a new graving dock at Hebburn from Robert Stephenson and Company.[9] In 1919, Palmers laid down the SS Gairsoppa, which was sunk by a German U-boat in 1941, causing the loss of 84 lives and 200 long tons (203 tonnes) of silver.[10][11]
The Great Depression began in 1929, all but destroying the shipbuilding industry, which did not rebound until the Second World War. In 1931, Palmers posted a loss of £88,867, equivalent to £7,627,000 in 2023. The company received a moratorium from its creditors in order to extend repayment. In January 1933, the majority of the company's unsecured creditors met in London and agreed to extend the moratorium a further six months.[12]
Palmers was unable to survive and collapsed by the end of 1933. The company's blast furnaces and steel works—which covered 37 acres—were put up for auction.[13] The Jarrow yard was sold to National Shipbuilders Securities, which closed it down in order to sell it, causing much unemployment and leading to the Jarrow March.[14] After the shipyard closed, following support from the industrialist, Sir John Jarvis, the site was used the engine shop as a steel foundry for another 18 months.[15]
The company retained the yard at Hebburn and was acquired by Armstrong Whitworth, becoming Palmers Hebburn Company.[16] In 1973, Vickers-Armstrongs, successor to Armstrong Whitworth, sold the Palmers Dock at Hebburn to Swan Hunter and developed it as the Hebburn Shipbuilding Dock.[17] This facility was acquired from the receivers of Swan Hunter by Tyne Tees Dockyard in 1994. They sold it to Cammell Laird in 1995. When Cammell Laird entered receivership in 2001, the dock was acquired by A&P Group.[18][19] The yard remains in use as a ship repair and refurbishment facility.[20]
Ships built by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company[edit]
^Some 19th-century and later sources refer to the company as "Palmer's Shipbuilding and Iron Company", with an apostrophe, but in Some Account of the Works of Palmers Shipbuilding & Iron Company Limited, which was compiled by the business's company secretary Malcom Dillon and published in 1900, the name is given throughout as "Palmers ...", without the apostrophe.[4][5][3]
^"A speciality of [Palmers' engine works] is the manufacture of the 'Reed' water-tube boiler, the invention of Mr J. W. Reed, manager of the engine works department, which has been adopted with well-known results in ... high-speed [torpedo boat destroyers] ..., and also in vessels constructed for the Admiralty on the Clyde. It may be observed that nearly 25 miles [40 km] of tubes are used in the manufacture of the boilers and machinery of each 30-knot destroyer."[7]
^C. Michael Hogan; Peter Saundry (21 May 2012). Cleveland, Cutler J (ed.). "SS Gairsoppa recovery". Encyclopedia of Earth. Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 10 February 2017.
^"Palmers' Moratorium". Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette. 14 January 1933. Retrieved 12 August 2017.
^"Steel Works to be Sold at Auction". The Times. 10 July 1934. p. 11.
Friedman, Norman (2009). British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN978-1-84832-049-9.
Johnston, Ian; Buxton, Ian (2013). The Battleship Builders – Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships (Hardback). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN978-1-59114-027-6.
Wilkinson, Ellen (1939). The Town That Was Murdered, The Life-Story of Jarrow. Victor Gollancz Ltd.
Royal Navy (1912)
Victorian Navy (1868)
Austro-Hungarian Navy (1889)
Evan Thomas Radcliffe (1882)
