ABSTRACT
Prior to the First World War, shipbuilding was one of the great capital goods industries and British shipbuilders 'enjoyed a supremacy such as few other industries are ever likely to rival'. While ships were built from wood, shipbuilding was a highly skilled craft and the Thames was the leading area in Britain, establishing an enviable reputation for the quality of its workmanship, expressed in such phrases as 'river built' and 'Blackwall fashion'. During the period 1830-75, the shipbuilding trade expanded enormously, employment within the UK trebled, and a trade which was in 1830 still a craft, soon became a branch of the heavy engineering industry. As iron began to replace wood, however, as the main material for the construction of large commercial and naval vessels, the British shipbuilding industry was transformed. Changes in the demands of the state had specific and very important effects on the trade on the Thames.
