Clydebank is synonymous with shipbuilding. In its heyday the river was a major shipping highway; its banks were brimming with activity, home to some of the most famous and well reputed shipyards in the world. Here, in 1947, we witness the era during which the shipbuilding industry was thriving, and can see two of the major yards in operation - Barclay Curle’s Clydeholm yard at Whiteinch on the north bank and, to the south, Alexander Stephen’s Linthouse yard.
The Clydeholm yard, purchased by Barclay Curle & Co in 1855, is well known for the construction of several Insect-class gunboats for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Around 750 ships were built there over the years, including many famous ones for companies including the British India Line, City Line, Donaldson Line, Castle Line and P&O. Work at the yard ceased in 1967. The North British Diesel Engine Works was built on the site in 1913. The steel-framed brick and glass seminal modernist building, modelled on Behrens’ AEG turbine factory, still stands today.
Stephen’s yard, founded in 1750, operated at various locations before moving to Linthouse in 1870. It is perhaps most well known for the two-year repair of the cruiser HMS Sussex after it was set on fire and sunk on the 18th September 1940 by a Luftwaffe bomb. The hundreds of other jobs, completed across a number of years, notably included ships for Elders and Fyffes for the banana trade; cruisers, destroyers, minesweepers and corvettes for the Royal Navy; the aircraft-carrier Ocean and the sloop Amethyst. Work at Stephen’s ceased in 1968 when it became part of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders Ltd, which itself collapsed in 1971.
The modern face of shipbuilding on the Clyde is far removed from these scenes. The 2010 imagery (deselect the ticked 'Glasgow 1947' Overlay on the top right of the image) depicts utter transformation - the decline of the industry is starkly apparent and the once bustling banks are now largely colonised by warehouses and distribution depots. The contrast between the images is representative of industrial decline of enormous proportions across the city – something that we can clearly observe if we navigate to other areas of the mosaic.
By selecting the Road Map layer you can see the north entrance to the Clyde Tunnel. Given the go ahead in 1948, the year after our aerial photograph was taken, at the time it was thought impractical to build a bridge in this area due to the high volume of shipping for the yards. Construction wasn’t completed until 1963, however by this time the movement of shipping to further up the Clyde and improvements in technology would have meant a bridge would have been cheaper, require less maintenance and have a higher capacity.