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history |
The Caledon Shipyard was founded at Marine Parade, Dundee, in 1874 by W B Thompson, who eight years earlier had returned from a managerial post in a Finnish shipyard to set up an engineering business at the Tay Foundry at Stobswell about a mile from Dundee Docks. Even before instituting the shipyard, in the five years prior to 1874, he had built four small yachts in his up-town foundry and hauled them down to the river on bogies drawn by teams of horses. So it was that his fifth vessel, the 'Ilala' - the first constructed at the new yard, and that on his own account - was launched. His first contract was for a yacht for the Earl of Caledon who, on the launch of the 'Banshee', gave permission for the yard to be called The Caledon Shipyard. In 1889 Thompson made the first of two moves the Caledon has experienced when he acquired the Craigie yard of Pearce Brothers renaming it `Caledon'. The business of W B Thompson & Co., Ltd. was reconstituted in 1896 as the Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Co., Ltd., the name it still bears today under the umbrella of Robb Caledon Shipbuilders, Ltd - now a member of British Shipbuilders. The present yard, the third, was laid out at Stannersgate only a few hundred yards from the second 'Caledon' and the first ship was launched from there in 1919. A fuller account of the history of the Caledon Shipyard is given in the Centenary Brochure included in this collection under reference GD324/7/3. |