Back to basics - shipbuilding returns to Merseyside

Plans of Cammell Laird's Docks, Dock Book 1909

This week sees an extraordinary and historic milestone - shipbuilding in Merseyside reborn.

As the first steel for the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth is cut  - Cammell Laird shipyard returned to shipbuilding 17 years since its last completed ship and over 180 years since the company was founded.

Cammell Laird has an extraordinarily strong maritime heritage. It built the world's first steel ship, Ma Roberts, for the famous explorer Dr Livingstone and went on to build over a thousand ships including the Ark Royal.

The shipyard is a world-famous icon of shipbuilding, known for developing innovative new shipbuilding techniques and for being a pioneer of many 'industry firsts'.

Historic ships built in the earlier days of the yard still survive today - such as the 1950's steamer Manxman which is listed on the National Historic Fleet.

The company, after being nationalised in 1977, headed into financial difficulty after the failure of a £50m cruise ship contract and was forced into receivership in 2001.

Fortunately, the brand continued in Cammell Laird Gibralter and was eventually re-launched in 2008.

Chief Executive, John Syvret, is hopeful that 'this project will lead to bigger and better things...but it makes a change to celebrate the rebirth of a once-great history".

At the start of World War I British shipbuilders were out-producing the rest of the world in terms of naval and merchant ship tonnage - by the 1980's British domination in shipbuilding was reduced to less than 1% of the world output.

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