page_title: Stothert & Pitt
section_title: Electric dock cranes
hierarchical_section_title: Stothert & Pitt / History / 20th century / Electric dock cranes
caption_attribution_description: English: Cabin, 1954 Stothert &amp; Pitt Crane, Falmouth Docks
context_page_description: Stothert & Pitt was a British engineering company founded in 1855 in Bath, England. It was the builder of various engineering products ranging from Dock cranes to construction plant and household cast iron items. It went out of business in 1989. The name and intellectual property became part of Clarke Chapman.
context_section_description: Stothert and Pitt supplied their earliest electric powered crane to Southampton Dock Authority in 1892. Electric power provided several advantages: powerful motors could be placed in each crane and powered centrally, without requiring a separate prime mover (i.e. steam engine and boiler) in each crane. The crane mechanisms were also lighter, allowing them to be placed on raised carriages that could then straddle a railway freight line- the portal crane. Rather than requiring a bare strip of unused quayside between the railway line and the harbour wall to leave space for cranes, the railway could now be brought right to the dock edge. Cranes were also available immediately, without waiting for boilers to raise steam. Most importantly though (and an advantage over centrally powered hydraulic cranes), electric cranes were now mobile along the dock edge on their own rail lines. Rather than ships queueing for a single berth space alongside a fixed crane, cranes could be brought to each ship's hold hatches as needed. This made a single crane far more efficient, in terms of cargo handled per day. Soon such mobile electric cranes were near universal.
  Five examples of electric cranes provided in 1951 have been preserved by Bristol Museum Service at Princes Wharf.
caption: Cabin, 1954 Stothert & Pitt Crane, Falmouth Docks
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