Hawthorn Leslie Shipyard

HER Number

2227

District

S Tyneside

Site Name

Hawthorn Leslie Shipyard

Place

Hebburn

Map Sheet

NZ36NW

Class

Maritime

Site Type: Broad

Marine Construction Site

Site Type: Specific

Shipyard

General Period

POST MEDIEVAL

Specific Period

Victorian 1837 to 1901

Form of Evidence

Structure

Description

This iron shipbuilding yard and boiler works was opened on an open piece of ground at Hebburn by R.W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company Ltd in 1853. By the time of Leslie's retirement in 1885, the yard had produced 255 ships, totalling more than 300,000 tons. In 1886, the yard was merged with Hawthorns, becoming Hawthorn-Leslie and Co. Ltd. The yard began producing warships in 1895 and was refitted from 1902-1912, with new berths, slips and cranes. During World War One and World War Two the output of the yard was a mixture of warships and merchant vessels, including the Aircraft Carrier Triumph in 1946. Post-war production was again a mixture of merchant and naval craft. In 1968, the yard became a part of Swan Hunter and Tyne Shipbuilders Ltd. And in 1977 was nationalized as a member company of British Shipbuilders, and put on a "care and maintenance" basis in November 1982 and reopened by Cammel Lairds in the 1990s, but went into receivership in Summer 2001. The site contains the oldest surviving graving dock on the river, and a number of Listed Buildings, including the Hawthorn Leslie Offices , a late nineteenth century cast iron drinking fountain, and a 1920s clock tower building. LISTED GRADE 2

Easting

430540

Northing

565410

Grid Reference

NZ430540565410

Sources

<< HER 2227 >> 1st edition Ordnance Survey Map, c.1855, 6 inch scale, Durham , 3; Tyne & Wear HER, Hawthorn Leslie File, SCT/ST/IA2; N L Middlemiss, 1993, British Shipbuilding Yards, Vol 1: North East Coast, p.75-89; The Archaeological Practice, 2002, Shipbuilding on Tyne and Wear - Prehistory to Present; I. Ayris & S.M. Linsley, 1994, A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Tyne and Wear, p 75; South Tyneside MBC, 1995, National Shipbuilding Exhibition Centre, Hebburn Business Plan; Lancaster University Archaeological Unit, 2000, Former Hawthorn Leslie Shipyard, Tyne and Wear - Archaeological Assessment; Tyne and Wear Archives - catalogue for collection 962 (outline of company's history), 962/866 (notes on the Hebburn Yard Reconstruction, 1939); Woodhorn NRO 4720/B, 159 and 160 (plans of shipyard offices); BC Browne, 1914, History of the New Firm of R & W Hawthorn (now R & W Hawthorn Leslie and Co Ltd); A Burton, 1994, The Rise and Fall of British Shipbuilding; JF Clarke, 1978, Power on Land and Sea: 160 Years of Industrial Enterprise on Tyneside, a History of R & W Hawthorn Leslie; JF Clarke, 1997, Building Ships on the North East Coast: a labour of Love, Risk and Pain Vols 1 and 2; D Dougan, 1968, The History of North East Shipbuilding; P Elson, 1986, Tyneside Shipbuilding 1920-1960; M Hague, 1975, A Study of the Shipbuilding Industry in Tyne and Wear (unpublished report for Tyne & Wear County Council); Hawthorn Leslie, 1953, A Cavalcade of Ships over the Century (unpublished text); Hawthorn Leslie, 1983, Hawthorn Leslie (Engineers) Ltd, their stake in the future; A Johnson, 1988, Shipbuilding 1918-34 with Particular Reference to the Tyne Yards (BA thesis, Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic); NL Middlemiss, 1993, British Shipbuilding Yards, 1, North East Coast; J Mitchell, 1929, The Reconstruction of a Graving-Dock Entrance with a Single-Leaf Gate at Hebburn-on-Tyne in Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 229, pp 96-113; Archaeological Research Services, 2022, Hawthorn Leslie Shipyard, Hebburn: Historic Building Recording. ARS Ltd Report No: 2022/192