Maryport Shipbuilding Woods Yard 1765-1862
WOOD’S YARD 1765-1862
The first yard documented in Maryport was Wood’s Yard located in the North Harbour, Strand Street, and on January 19, 1765 the first vessel built was the 106 ton “Brig Sally” followed by the “Delight” of 127 tons and from thence William Wood was joined by his brother’s son Thomas Wood and between them they built some 70 vessels until their deaths in 1804.
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William was aged 79 years and Thomas 47 years and afterwards the yard was carried on by Adam Wood the son of Wilton Wood, while he in turn was joined by Kelsick Wood from Workington in 1818, and in the 1820’s his son John carried on the yard upon the death of his father Kelsick in 1840, and in 1859 John Wood died and the yard was then carried on for a further three years by his son Wilton who launched the last vessel to come out of the yard the “Flimby” (290 tons) on September 29, 1862.
Some 126 vessels were traced as having been built at Wood’s Maryport between 1765 and 1862 a total of 97 years under the control of one family spanning three generations thus playing a great part in the development of Maryport as a ship building centre.
The following list names a small number of vessels built by Wood’s:-
1778 – ” Thomas”
1782 – “Zephyr” – a snow (a small brig like vessel with a supplementary trysail mast) of 337 tons.
1784 – the “Fortitude” (220 tons)
1788 – “Economy”
1794 – “Sarah”
1 801 – “Thetis”
1801 – “Dawson”
1811 – “Helena” (270 tons) was the largest ship up to that date built there.
1 837 – “Campbell” (Snow) (203 tons)
1835 – “Paragon” (Brig) (207 tons)
1785 – “Unerigg” (Brig) (140 tons)
1766 – “Delight” (Brig) (119 tons)
1793 – ” Ann” (Brig) (90 tons)
1 791 – ” Bella Isle” (Brig) (117 tons)
1836 – “Cockermouth Castle” (Snow) (231 tons)
1830 – “Susannah” (Brig) (48 tons)
1783 – “Terry” (Brig) (171 tons)
1 824 – “William & Mary” (Sloop) (34 tons)
1793 – “Woods” (Brig) (85 tons)
1821 – “Hotspur” (Snow) (205 tons)
1835 – “Tomlinson” (Brig) (125 tons)
Late 1700’s – The Brig “Harrison & Tomb” (188 tons) was employed in the North Atlantic timber trade.
1797 – The “Postlethwaite” (258 tons) built at a cost of £5,740, her cost to sea was £ 149 a ton and the price of a sixteenth share in her was £233. 15s. 0d, and the dividend paid out to their shareholders on six year’s trading was £521 10s.0p, per 16th share, her total profits for the period being £8,744.
Kelsick Wood’s first steam ship was the “Cheshire Witch” of 113 tons built for the Royal Dock Ferry Co. but in the main he was faithful to the brig and brigantine.
1830 – The “Archer” a 237 ton barque was launched for a firm of Carlisle merchants at a cost of £12 a ton.
1821 – One of Wood’s larger vessels his first full rigger of 352 tons the “Coeur-de-Lion“-was built for Fisher’s of Liverpool, later Fisher and Sprott.
1821 – The “Prowler” a 109 ton brig was built for Thomlinson’s of Liverpool.
1833 – The “Wilton Wood” – a family name launched on September 18, 1833, was of 243 tons and had been built for Stockdale and Co.
1833 – The “Mary” of 700 tons the largest vessel to have come out of Cumberland to date.
1840 – In March was launched the second largest vessel – the “Recorder” named in honour of Gilbert Henderson the “Recorder” of Liverpool, and had a figure head carved by James Brooker of Maryport.
1984 – is the 250th year of Lloyd’s List and the anniversary is being celebrated by a great exhibition being housed at Greenwich Maritime Museum and one of the entrants a model of “The Black Prince” built at Wood’s shipbuilding yard is on view having been loaned by the Liverpool Maritime Museum..
The Black Prince Brig 298 tons Launched 1838
The Black Prince came from the yard a year after they had completed the 113 tons “Cheshire Witch“, the first steamer built at the port. She was launched on May 24, 1838 a wooden brig of 298 tons, on dimensions of 96.5 x 22.6 x 16.9 ft with one deck and break, carvel built, square stern with no galleries and a man’s figure head under a standing bowsprit, and ranked as a reasonable sized vessel, as large as many regular traders to North America, and the West Indies.
She was in service for 52 years, was known as an Ocean Wanderer, and her end came on March 28, 1890 when bound south from Hartlepool with coal for Portsmouth she was in collision with the steamer “Larch” five miles off Whitby where the master and crew landed safely in their own boat after abandoning ship
The “Cumberland Pacquet” and “Wares” “Whitehaven Advertiser” of January 19th, 1841 provided some interesting information two articles being as follows –
“Messrs. K. Wood and Son on the previous Tuesday had launched from their building yard a new vessel of 250 tons – register measurement, named the “Aristrocrat” and built for W. Fisher of Workington.”
The vessel is described as “Splendid, coppered, and copper fastened” and in every respect worthy of the eminent firm by which it was erected.
Advertised for sale by auction is the Brig “Eliza Heywood“, described as A1 at Lloyds for 12 years, with all her materials she lies in Princes Dock – Liverpool. Burthen per register 226 tons – old measure, built at Maryport by K. Wood & Sons in 1834 and sailed on her first voyage in November of that year, is copper fastened and was new coppered in 1838, length 80’1″, breadth 24’0″ , depth 15’9”.
A further advert states, K. Wood & Sons (1832) well known shipbuilders and repairers, and as stated “Ships were taken into the yard to repair upon iron rails, while an advert in the local paper of December 6th, 1911 stated that a patch of ground of the N. W. side of Strand Street, Maryport containing 2,495 ½ square yards or thereabouts and formerly occupied as Wood’s Shipbuilding and repairing yard was for sale by public auction, the annual ground rent being £4. 13. 0d.
A ship and ornamental carver named James Brooker had a workshop in Eaglesfield Street, Maryport, where for many years from 1 840 he worked on Maryport, Harrington, Workington and Whitehaven ships. A letter of 1846 from K. Wood & Sons, shipbuilders states
“We have much pleasure in certifying that we have for many years employed Mr. James Brooker in carving figure heads and sterns, and all other carved work belonging to vessels, and that we consider him inferior to none, but superior to most in that art. We feel confident that he will give satisfaction to those who may employ him“.
James Brooker served his apprenticeship in 1828 and on coming to Maryport in 1842 he took a grant of land in part of Eaglesfield Street from Humphrey Senhouse – Lord of the Manor and carved on the lintel of his house a replica of The Lion of Lucerne which is still there today. In the Maryport Advertiser of December 4th, 1853 it states that his house, workshop, furniture and fittings were to be sold as he was leaving for Glasgow. In 1851 he was awarded a medal from Crystal Palace Exhibition.
Compiled by Miss Annie Robinson, MBE JP for Maryport Maritime Museum – Adapted for online appreciation by Peter Nicholson
Sailing Ships Built in West Cumberland from 1700s by Desmond G Sythes 1969
First published by Whitehaven news 1969. Reprinted by the friends of Whitehaven museum 1992
Page 8 chapter 5
Maryport
The earliest vessel recorded to have entered the River Ellen was the Betsy, a sloop, which arrived from Dublin in ballast in 1709.
By 1781 20 cargoes of coal had been shipped out of the river. 40 years later shipments had increased to 40,000 tonnes and by 1853, Maryport exported 269,000 tonnes of coal fast gaining on her sister towns.
Cool and iron
Maryport reached her peak around the year 1867 when 476,162 tonnes of cool were exported. Thereafter trade declined a little until the opening of the Senhouse dock in 1884 made an improvement in the returns as the booming trade of iron ore and steel rails, as well as coal, got underway.
The first shipbuilding yard was opened by William Wood at the bottom of Strand Street on January 19 1765. Woods first vessel was the 106 tonne brig Sally, followed by the Delight, of 127 tonnes in the same year. Like his brother John, at Workington, William Wood built a steady flow of brigs, averaging two or three a year. He was joined by his brother’s son, Thomas Wood in 1783, where between them they built some 70 vessels until their deaths in 1804.
The snow Zephir
The biggest vessels to come out of the Woods yard were the Zephir, a snow (small brig like vessel with supplementary trysail mast) of 377 tonnes in 1782, and the Fortitude 220 tonnes in 1744. William was aged 79 at the time of his death and Thomas, his nephew, 47. Afterwards the yard was carried on by Adam Wood, the son of Wilton Wood. He in turn was joined by Kelsick Wood from Workington in 1818.
As with the early Woods vessels at Workington, very little is known about them other than their names and tonnages, though a few vessels leave some sort of story in there wake.
The Harrison & Tomb built by Thomas Wood in 1796 was a 188 tonne brig employed in the North Atlantic timber trade. In April 1822, she left Maryport, sailing north about around the coast of Ireland, bound for Canada.
The weather came onto blow when she was a beam of Tory Island, and by midnight she was running under storm canvas in very reduced visibility. Later during darkness she collided with a Danish brig bound for Naples with a cargo of salt fish from the Grand Banks.
Abandoned ship
While the ships were locked together, the master and four of the crew from the Dane leapt aboard the Harrison & Tomb somehow knowing that their vessel had received the greater damage. When the ships parted the Dane quickly sank, but the Harrison & Tomb limped along until she met up with the Princess Royal, out of Liverpool, which took aboard the Danish survivors. The master of the Maryport brig considered that his ship was in no fit condition to brave the North Atlantic, turned back and made for Belfast to undergo repair.
Freak damage
The Harrison & Tomb was once again in some difficulty in 1824 while laying at her berth at Maryport. She was moored ahead of a vessel discharging logs over the side for rafting when, unknown to anyone, a log wedged itself under her keel. When the tide ebbed the vessel took the ground across the log, causing her to hog and strain her timbers, and she was unable to make her intended passage to Quebec until she had undergone repair, thereby losing a valuable charter.
The Postlethwaite of 258 tonnes, built at the Woods yard in 1797 at a cost of £3,740, gives us a fair idea of the cost and profits of a vessel in this period. Her cost to sea was £149 a ton and the price for a 16th share in her was £233 15 shillings. In 1797 she made four passages to Dublin, showing a profit of £261 1s 1s. In March, 1798, she made a profit of £179 on a voyage from Waterfield to Liverpool and again in July of the same year £54 14s 6d on a voyage to Belfast.
Passage profits
1779 was a better year for her owners; the Postlethwaite was a prison ship at Belfast, netting an income of £1,016.
In 1800 she made a passage from Martinico to London, and showed a profit of £82 2s 2d. Between 1803 and 1804 she was employed as a government transport, chartered at 18s a ton, which gave her oners a total of £3,919 8s. After one more passage to Memel at a profit of £24 11s 6d she was sold for £2,800.
The dividend paid out to her shareholders on six years trading was £521 10s per sixteenth share, her total profits for their period being £8,744.
First steamer
Kelsick Wood built 56 ships between 1818 and 1862 at Maryport. He built the first steam-ship, the Cheshire Witch, of 113 tons, for the Royal Dock Ferry Co., but in the main, like his predecessors, he was faithful to the brig and brigantine.
Kelsick’s Archer, a 237 tone barque launched in 1830, was built for a firm of Carlisle merchants at cost of £12 per ton; the Prowler, a 109 ton brig, was launched for Tomlinsons of Liverpool in 1821, while one of his larger vessels, the Coeur-de-Lion, Kelsick Wood’s first full-rigger of 352 tons, was bilt for Fishers of Liverpool, later Fisher & Sprott.
Kelsick Wood’s fame as a ship-builder was becoming known outside the county.
The Wilton Wood, named after one of the family, was launched on September 18th 1833. The newspaper “Cumberland Pacquet” described her as a “fine copper-bottomed vessel”, a description they would also have used to describe a kettle. She was of 243 tons, and had been built for Stockdale & Co.
Seven hundred tonner
Kelsick Wood had been joined by his son in the 1820s and the latter carried on the yard at the death of his father in 1840.
Before his death Kelsick Wook built the largest vessel to have come out of Cumberland to date, the Mary, of 700 tons, in 1838.
John Wood, his son, launched in March 1840 the second largest vessel, the Recorder, of 512 tons. She was named in compliment to Gilbert Henderson, the Recorder of Liverpool, and had a figurehead carved by James Brooker a craftsman well known for his work at Maryport.
Brooker had a workshop at the junction of Eaglesfield Street and Church Street, Maryport, where his carving of the “Lion of Lucerne” over the doorway can be seen today. Brooker’s figurehead for the Recorder was a full-length carving of the learned gentleman in his legal robes. Brooker also carved a replica of Justice, with the sword and scales in either hand, for the stern decoration.
The last vessel
Kelsick Wood’s son, John, died in 1859. The yard was then carried on for a further three years by his son, Wilton, who launched the last vessel to come out of the yard, the Flimby 290 tons, on September 29th 1862.
Some 126 vessels have been so far traced as having been built by the Woods at Maryport between 1765 and 1862. Their yard had operated for 97 years under the control of one family spanning three generations, and they in no small measure played a part in the development of Maryport as a shipbuilding centre.