ABSTRACT
The period 1854-59, taken as a whole, was a boom time for the British shipbuilding trade. In the period 1854-59, there were seven iron shipbuilders of some importance on the Thames; Scott Russell, Mare, Money Wigram, Samuda, Rennie, Westwood Baillie and Lungley, far fewer than some listings have suggested. Some accounts and listings of firms on the Thames that built significant volumes of iron ships have tended greatly to exaggerate the number of firms involved and thus the nature of the declines of 1857 and 1866. Samuda strengthened his reputation for technical sophistication and Lungley, Money Wigram and Rennie continued to make ships at moderate levels of output. Samuda and Co. were technologicaily progressive shipbuilders, pioneering the construction of ships from steel and building one such vessel in 1856 for service on the River Kuban. Westwood and Baillie successfully formed their own business, after a long apprenticeship in Mare's yard.
