AN IRON CITY BY THE SEA

From the New York Times, 30th May 1881, page 3.

AN IRON CITY BY THE SEA

THE GREAT SHIP-BUILDING YARDS AT BARROW-IN-FURNESS.

HOW JAMES RAMSDEN WENT TO BARROW AN ENGINEER AND BECAME A KNIGHT - FROM VILLAGE TO METROPOLIS - BUILDING OCEAN STEAMERS.

A few years ago there shot into a drowsy village on the north-western coast of England a locomotive and a car. The stirring scream of a steam whistle announced to the inhabitants - mainly fishermen, whose cabins were scattered along the beach - that iron nerves had united their quiet out-of-the-way town to the greater arteries of commerce. The region, however, was not devoid of interest. A mile away the ruins of an abbey were full of historic associations - Furness Abbey had given shelter to fugitive Kings in the days of its grandeur; chieftains from the Isle of Man; priest and pilgrim warrior had thronged its broad hallways: and when driven from castle and cathedral, a handful of Knights Templar here made a gallant resistance against the kingly decree which dissolved their order in Great Britain. Later on it became one of the grandest ruins in England, and to-day bats and legends float about its crumbling walls. The beautiful scenery of the neighbourhood was a geat attraction to strangers, it is true, but, with the exception of geologists, to whom the district had always been an interesting one, there seemed little reason to break the stillness of the hour and scene by the introduction of this restless agent of civilization, the locomotive.

A few years later James Ramsden, with whom the marvellous growth and commercial importance of Barrow-in-Furness is associated, stepped upon the train as Superintendent - an engineer by profession, endowed by nature with clear and bright-eyed intelligence and a robust and hearty English frame. He early saw the natural advantages of the situation, the hills about Barrow filled with an excelent quality of ore, and an arm of the sea which made an admirable harbor for vessels of the heavisest tonnage. Some months since, out from one of the largest ship-yards in the world, situated in one of the busiest cities of Great Britain, there glided ito the water a steam-ship of over 8,000 tons burden - City of Rome - and among the gentlemen in charge of the launching was Sir James Ramsden. The engineer had toiled his way to knighthood and the little village was a metropolis, with a hundred roaring chimneys towering above factory, loom, and forge.

With the first advancing steps of this iron city by the sea came the helping hand of a nobleman, whose immense fortune was a source of power, especially when combined with excellent judgement and business capacity, as it was in the person of the Duke of Devonshire. It would be hardly possible to compute the Duke's profits on the excellent investments he has made in Barrow. His interests in the mines, the rolling mills, and the ship-yards, and docks are colossal.

Two things have united to produce the rapid growth of Barrow-in-Furness, transforming it from a quiet fishing village into one of the busiest cities in the United Kingdom. First, the abundant supply of hematite ore, and, second, the judicious outlay of capital.

The subjoined statement of the Furness Railway will show the total weight of imports and exports for year 1879:

This city of marvelous growth, to be likened only to the Western cities of America, has its banks and banking offices, institutions of learning, and academies of science and art. On every hand with the marks of great financial progress can be seen the sure indications that education and refinement have kept pace with the advancement of this favored city.

A line of steamers with New York, dispatching at the outset but one vessel each month, now sends one each week, and with no want of freight or passengers. There is also a tri-weekly line of steamers to the Isle of Man.

In order that the reader may know the advantages of the region for the building of iron ships, the following statistics of ore taken out and manufactured may be given :

With a water-front capable of launching the largest steam-ships, and the hills behind them full of ore, it is not to be wondered at that, backed by the capital of the Duke of Devonshire and others, the ship-yards of Barrow-in-Furness should soon compete with those of the Clyde for supremacy. The following list of steamers will show how active the Barrow company has been in the building of ships.

The ninetieth steamer is now in course of construction, and among many others the Barrow company has up to the present time built and furnished with engines the following large vessels:

Some idea of the extent of the various docks may be had in the following statistics of the area covered by them:

Nor is it simply for the building of hulls and the construction of engines that the Barrow company makes contracts. Leave your order for an ocean steamer complete today, and presto ! in a few months, riding on the billows awaiting a crew is a vessel, thoroughly equipped from stem to stern. Everything necessary for an ocean steamer - sails, rigging, stores, &c.- carrying either freight or passengers, may be had of the Barrow Company.

Follow the writer through its ship-yards. You enter the main gateway, and the magnitude of the shops and forges amazes you. To the left are the offices of the company, and near them the joiners shop and the saw mill. To the right are the smiths shops, and the frame-benders' shed. Just beyond is the drawing office and model room.

The joiners' shop is a building 300 feet long and 60 feet wide. This building is supplied with every appliance known to ship-joiner work, and is said to be the most complete shop in every respect in the United Kingdom.

Beyond it is a still larger room, 450 feet by 60 feet, in which the immense masts and spars are made. Above these rooms are the cabinet-makers' shops, where every article of furniture required by an ocean steamer is manufactured.

The machine shed is 360 feet by 160 feet. The smiths' shop is 200 feet by 120 feet. This room contains 100 fires and seven steam hammers. The former are blown by an enormous Schiele fan.

All these shops and sheds occupy less than a third of the ground devoted to the ship-building department. At the back of the machine shop are the shipways, where vessels of an aggregate tonnage of nearly 40,000 tons are in a more or less advanced stage of construction. Taking these in their order, there were recently to be seen five gun boats building for the Admiralty - the Grappler, Banterer, Wrangler, Espoir, and Wasp. Three of these were on the same slip, one behind the other. The slip is under cover, and was intended for the construction of yachts, for which the company is acquiring great reputation. The gun-boats will be all the same size, 460 tons, with engines of 360 horsepower. Next to the gun-boats was the gigantic City of Rome, which will be the largest merchantman afloat after the Great Eastern. Next to the City of Rome is a slip devoted to a vessel of 4,100 tons, with engines of 3,800 horsepower, to be constructed for the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and the blocks for which are now being laid. When the company was at work on the keel of the Furnessia, visitors had an opportunity of seeing a new arrangement of hydraulic riveter designed by Mr.R.H.Tweddell, and constructed by Messrs.Fielding & Platt, of Gloucester, expressly for this class of work.

Nothing can give so good an impression of the size of these large ships out of the water as to compare the City of Rome or the Furnessia as they were seen on the stocks, with the Aries, a yacht of 300 tons, placed between them, and building for Sir James Ramsden, who recently lost his other yacht of the same name, also built at Barrow. Beyond the Furnessia are slips for two sister ships of 3,800 tons and 2,500 horsepower, ordered by the Société Générale de Transports Maritimes, of Marseilles. For these the keels are laid and the frames are being bent. Beyond the French boats comes a 4,000 ton ship, to be specially constructed for the cattle trade, and her frames are now being erected. In addition to these the company have contracted for a second 4,000 ton ship for the Peninsular and Oriental Company, which will be laid down on the same slip as the Furnessia. This rapid summary of the vessels now on the stocks will give some idea of the amount of work in hand at this ship yard, and which, in several of the departments necessitates continuous labor night and day. The company are now putting up appliances for electric light, which will almost immediately be in operation, and will be of great assistance to the night gangs of frame-benders and keel-riveters, who for some time past have had to work the 24 hours round.

We now pass by the subway to the engineering department, which occupies an area of ground equal to that of the ship-yard proper. To the left, in an isolated building, is the coppersmiths' shop, the brass foundry, and the engineers' smithy: the foundry has seven ordinary pot furnaces, and one large reverberatory air furnace for castings of the heaviest class: the smithy is well fitted up and has one 2-ton steam hammer and three small ones.

On the opposite side of the ground are two buildings, the one to the left containing the iron foundry and boiler shop, and that to the right is occupied by the turning and erecting shop. The foundry is 250 feet by 150 feet, and is capable of turning out the largest castings required for the monster marine engines of the present day. Here was cast a part of the bed-plate of the City of Rome's engines, weighing 34 tons. In the boiler shop, which is the same size, the boilers of the Furnessia and those of the City of Rome were constructed. All these are 19 feet by 14 feet, with 1 ¼-inch plates, and for the shells and tube-plates we saw used a new and ingenious drilling machine which drills eight holes at once. In the boiler shop also a number of Mr.Tweddell's hydraulic riverters are in use.

In the space between the boiler shop and the engine shop is a furnace for heating and the rolls for vertically bending the large plates for the shells of marine boilers. In the furnace just mentioned, which has been designed by Mr.Rogers, the manager of the shops, the plates are heated while standing on their edge, and as the top of the furnace is level with the ground they are readily lifted out by a portable crane and deposited on the bed-plate adjoining the vertical rolls. These rolls, which were made by Messrs.Scriven & Co., of Leeds, bend the plate in the usual way, the plate, however, during the whole process of bending resting on its edge on the bed-plate. The arrangement is a particularly handy one where large plates have to be dealt with. In this vacant space is also situated the water tower for the accumulator for the 100-ton crane, constructed by Sir William Armstrong at the dock-side, for placing on board and fixing the machinery for the new ships. This crane has the greatest range of any in the world, and only one other has equal power.

The engine shop, although 420 feet long by 150 feet wide, is scarcely large enough for the press of work concentrated there. A noticeable and excellent feature is the extent to which milling tools are employed on heavy work. Among the recent additions is a gigantic double standard slotting machine by Messrs.Buckton, of Leeds, possessing many excellent features, and adapted for the heaviest work. Another good tool is a very large screwing machine on Burrow's system, made by Messrs.Smith, Beacock & Tannett, this machine doing excellent work.