Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Description of Birkenhead Iron Works 1874

These pages are from a booklet produced by The Practical Magazine in June 1874, giving a history and description of the Birkenhead Iron Works - the name by which Laird's shipyard was then known.

Makes interesting reading. Thanks, yoller.

Wow!, enjoyable read, thanks mate.

many thanks Yoller, most interesting reading. For those interested in the 5 dry docks, No 1 was vitualy a tidal dry dock and stayed the same even in the 1950s. The other 4 docks had strong enough pumps to pump out against the tide but No 1 only had tiny pump that just about cleared the last 6 inch of water once the tide had gone out. So if you where docking a vessel in No 1 you had to wait for the tide to go out for the vesel to sit on the centre line blocks.

Useful pictures on these three threads as well ...

CLICKY 1

CLICKY 2

CLICKY 3

I was interested to read here about Laird's method of riveting boilers using some sort of steam-powered or hydraulic device.

This was in 1874 and I thought in those days that riveting was still done by hand, with men using hammers to secure the hot rivets.

There was a TV documentary last year about the Titanic which described how its hull was riveted using hammers - and that was in 1911-1912.

Were Laird's well ahead of their time with this riveting method?

Boiler rivets can be a lot larger than hull rivets, I'm pretty sure there were hand riveters for hulls at Lairds when I was young - and they were thrown and caught while hot!

yes, Yoller i seen the same programme and thought similar, i was also told that the nickname for birkenhead being "one eyed city" was due to so many riviters loosing their eye sight whilst building the great ships and doing such a dangerous job,but i am sure the more historical people on wiki can put us right

there where stil hand riveting in the 20s and 30s in Lairds. It depended on where abouts as a ship was constructed. The assembly of the boilers would be done in one of the shops{sheds}where it was a lot cheaper to do the riveting using steam or compressed air devices. where possible out on the slipways the holder up used a compressed air ram and the riveter used a compressed air hammer. As a side note, the Cost of suppling the compressed air was deducted from the squads pay even right up till the end of peace work in the late 70s drillers and caulkers pay had a reduction for the supply of compressed air.

My great grandfather was an iron turner and whisper it quietly came from Durham around about 1864. I wonder if he came to work in this place? Don't know much about him at all really.

Not a ship boiler but a steam roller one, the large horse shoe device was used to rivit up the long foundation ring rivets !.
Not me in the pic i might add !.