Steel, ships and men : Cammell Laird, 1824-1993 / [electronic resource]
Warren, Kenneth,author.
The firm of Cammell Laird originated in a boiler works in 1824 before growing and diversifying to become one of a small number of companies worldwide which could build, armour and arm the largest warships from the operations of a single company group. After World War I, it was reconstructed as a naval and mercantile shipbuilder with important financial interests in steel and rolling stock manufacture. Booming activity in World War II and continuing prosperity until the late 1950s was followed by increasing competition and deepening problems. By the 1980s the firms remaining steel interests had failed; in 1993 the once great Birkenhead shipyard closed. How and why did the businesses grow, then experience such problems and eventually collapse? This book tries to find answers.
Title Page; Contents; List of Figures and Tables; Abbreviations used in Notes; Preface; Introduction; Part One: Nineteenth-century Developments; 1: The Establishment and Development of the Cammell Enterprise to 1864; 2: Laird Shipbuilding to the 1860's; 3: The Rewards and Problems of Headlong Growth: The Early Years of a Limited Company; 4: The Struggle to Retain the Rail Trade; 5: Loss of Momentum: Charles Cammell and Company, 1873-1903; 6: Laird Brothers, 1865-1903; 7: Workington, 1883-1909: A Case of Better Rather than Best?
Part Two: Amalgamation, Diversification and Rationalisation, 1903-398: Multi-plant Operations and Managerial Difficulties, 1900-14; 9: Problems of Commercial Integration: Fairfield's and Coventry Ordnance Works; 10: Birkenhead Operations from 1903 to World War I; 11: World War I and the Post-war Boom: The Impact on Steel of High Activity, Plant Expansion and New Technology; 12: Shipbuilding, 1914-29; 13: Economic Depression and the Steel Trade in the 1920's; 14: Cammell Laird Rolling Stock; 15: Amalgamation and Rationalisation: The Formation and Early Development of the ESC
16: Economic Efficiency and Social Costs: The Closure of the Penistone Works 17: Reconstruction and Recovery at the ESC, 1932-39; 18: Shipbuilding in the Great Depression and the 1930's; Part Three: Culmination and Decline, 1940-93; 19: Steel Interests in and after World War II; 20: Shipbuilding in World War II and the Post-war World; 21: A Long Rearguard Action: Cammell Laird, 1970-93; Bibliography; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015).
The firm of Cammell Laird originated in a boiler works in 1824 before growing and diversifying to become one of a small number of companies worldwide which could build, armour and arm the largest warships from the operations of a single company group. After World War I, it was reconstructed as a naval and mercantile shipbuilder with important financial interests in steel and rolling stock manufacture. Booming activity in World War II and continuing prosperity until the late 1950s was followed by increasing competition and deepening problems. By the 1980s the firms remaining steel interests had failed; in 1993 the once great Birkenhead shipyard closed. How and why did the businesses grow, then experience such problems and eventually collapse? This book tries to find answers.
Cammell Laird Shipbuilders Ltd.
Shipbuilding industry