Insight into great days of shipyards

Sep 10 2008 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

AN archive which offers an insight into the shipbuilding heritage of Tyneside will be auctioned today.

More than 500 photographs from the Swan Hunter and Hawthorn Leslie yards on the Tyne are up for sale at Boldon Auction Galleries in South Tyneside.

The images of ships, launches, and shipyard scenes have been put up for auction by an anonymous Gateshead seller.

Boldon Auction Galleries director Giles Hodges said: “They are a real slice of shipbuilding history from the turn of the last century to some of the final ships to be built at Swan’s. Interior shots of liners like the Mauretania and the range of vessels built show the incredible output of the yards and the range of skills which were needed.

“This archive is a reminder of how important and prestigious the shipbuilding industry was to the North East and how quickly it disappeared.”

There are dramatic stories behind many of the ships pictured in the archive.

One is the Laconia, which was a Cunard ocean liner built by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson and launched in 1911.

On the outbreak of the First World War Laconia was turned into an armed merchant cruiser.

In 1917 she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-50 while returning from the United States to England with 75 passengers.

Chicago Tribune reporter Floyd Gibbons was aboard the Laconia and gained fame from his dispatches about the attack.

In 1921 Swan’s launched the second Laconia, also a Cunard ocean liner.

In the Second World War she too was converted into an armed merchant cruiser.

In 1942 she was torpedoed by U-boat U-156, killing most of the Italian prisoners of war the ship was carrying.

One of the launches pictured is of HMS Leviathan, a Majestic-class aircraft carrier laid down at Swan Hunter in 1943, and launched on June 7, 1945. She was scrapped before ever being commissioned.

The 1913 launch of the passenger liner Visegrad is also pictured. She was sunk in 1941, salvaged in 1952 and served as a Yugoslav liner until 1970.

Tony Henderson