Decline of Shipbuilding on the Wear


My lad is doing a thesis on the decline of the ship building industry on the Wear

Any links to articles/peer reviews would be appreciated. I know we have a few local history buffs get on here
 
Be canny if you can post a link to it when it’s done marra. Unsure how you can do this but I’d expect many of us would hoy a couple of quid in toward his study costs in exchange for a canny read.
 
Stay away from the COAST programme made about the closure of the Sunderland yards several years ago. The explanation given by that daft lad who now does the French villa thing with his Mrs on TV was that the yards in Sunderland still riveted ships and nobody wanted them. It was unbelievable rubbish

It was an Open University programme so I presume it was part of an educational course that they offered but the amount of reserach done was clearly zero. It didn't even address the simple issue that every ship was built to order and to the purchasers specific requirements. If ships had been riveted (which they weren't) it would be because those buying it wanted it that way. It wasn't the car industry yards didn't knock out a few ships and then wait to see if anyone would come along to buy them.

There are of course not only detailed records aviable of every ship built on the Wear since 1945 butbthere are also employment records collected by the Government over the years that record the occupational types to be found in any part of the country. Riveters figure as disappearing part of a shipyard workforce in Sunderland from the late 1950's onwards.

The programme was an absolute disgrace and I couldn't help thinking at the time that those who produced it had an agenda. Today it would be described a Fake News
 
The antiquarian society in Douro terrace would be a big help as well,and what they don't have, they will point you in the right direction to source info.
 
Not really about the decline, but my nana had a great book called “Where Ships are Born”. It had all the history of the yards and some of the main folk involved. A lot of the streets in Southwick are named after some of the high profile engineers e.g. Goschen, Hahnneman etc.

I was supposed to get the book when she passed, but it got skipped. Not that I’m bitter about it.
 
6 posts in and no mention of Thatcher. Disappointing. I hope she is burning in hell.

There'd been little investment into the yards even before Thatchers time..when i started at Pallion in 1980 there wasn't much in the way of orders..it's been mentioned on here about cheap Korean ships..well that's it in a nutshell..the Koreans and Japanese had the process of building ships like the way Nissan builds a car..like a moving line..over here it was like..the job will be done when it's done..nothing was timed..although they were trying to bring 'time and motion' in just before they closed..my nine years in the yards..poor training..antiquated machinery and poor working practices..the working practices is something i never realised until i worked in different places where they'd kind of adopted the Korean/Japanese methods..the yards had a good run and were great for the city but they just didn't move with the times quickly enough..near the end like i say they were doing 'time and motion' studies and introduced interchangeability where a welder could do a bit plating and a plater vice versa..all too little too late..the amalgamated NESL..Austin and Pickersgill and Sunderland Shipbuilders..was losing one million pounds a week when the yards closed..even two years before they shut there was an inevitability about it.
 

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