Steam Engine 1851, Tug "Clyde"

Stuart Cameron, on March 22, 2009, said:

Engine designed by Andrew Brown of the Clyde newly formed firm of A&J Inglis in the early 1850s. Brown later moved to the William Simons shipyard at Renfrew. He is credited as being the 'father of the steam dredger', one of the main types of machinery that kept the world ports in business. Simons together with the neighbouring Lobnitz yard and Fleming & Ferguson's on the Cart at Paisley built hundreds of steam dredgers which spread over the globe. The three yards closed in the 1960s but the Lobnitz nmae is perpetuated in a current design consultancy firm

Andrew Brown became the Provost of Renfrew and donated many bnefits to the Royal Burgh

Scally, on March 24, 2009, said:

Hi Stuart, you seem to be very knowledgeable about the Dredger Yards, but I remember when i lived in Tread street as a youth, that I could see the steel frame work, from my window looking over the Hamills, rising in a yard that I understood to be Dredgers that would be built, stripped down, then shipped overseas for re-erection. Are my memories correct? cheers scally.

Stuart Cameron, on May 10, 2009, said:

Scally

Some orders were 'knock-down' i.e. assembled with bolts first time, taken apart and re-assembled at destination with rivets. Not just the dredgers others were done like this from Inglis, Denny's, Yarrow's and Seath's yards to name a few. Alley & McLellan built up to 500 vessels as knock downs in their works at Jessie Street in Polmadie. Two of the last ships supplied by that means were Maid of the Loch (1953 from Ingls) as she was too large to go up the Leven as previous Loch Lomond stesmers had done, and the large Yarrow-built lake steamer 'Victoria' for shipment to Kenya. Pictures of her building at Yarrows and at Lake Victoria are at the following website Yarrow supervisers went out with the shipped parts and used local labour and rudimentary craneage to re-assemble her. Some other Clyde-built knockdown vessels also on this link

http://www.mccrow.org.uk/EastAfrica/EastAfricanRailways/MarineDivision/EARLakes.htm