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exactly what is a shipwright in days gone by and in todays ship building industry. naval ships, pleasure craft, yachts, small wooden craft. Traditions passed down.
some model builders enjoy the research, the story behind the models they build. what about expanding that information to the history of ship building and those who excelled in the industry. I wondered if the shipwrights during the war of 1812 on the Great lakes knew one another and exchanged information on design and construction of the ships they built. Who were these guys and where did they learn how to design and build ships? were there schools that taught a formal education of naval architecture? Where these shipwrights just natural talented guys who gained an on-the-job educations?
Starting in modern times if you want to be a "shipwright" a designer, a marine architect i would suspect you cannot just walk into a firm and say "hey i want to build ships" i would think the first question would be what is your education? Is there a hierarchy within the industry today?
The very mention of “Clyde-built” ships used to send shivers of admiration down the spine of mariners across the globe. Scotland, particularly the River Clyde, was once the undisputed powerhouse of world shipbuilding, producing some of the most advanced, reliable, and celebrated vessels in history.
Alexander Munn, shipbuilder and shipowner; b. 26 Sept. 1766 in Irvine, Scotland, son of John Munn, shipbuilder, and Catherine Edward; m. 6 Dec. 1797 Agnes Galloway at Quebec, Lower Canada, and they had 11 children, of whom six died in infancy; d. there 19 May 1812.
Alexander Munn is a shadowy figure. Since his personal and business records have apparently not survived, the only direct evidence about him consists of disparate references found in routinely generated sources such as notarial records, newspaper notices, and ship and church registers. Difficult to work, these sources do not yield a rounded portrait. But the broad picture that emerges clearly indicates he was a leading Quebec shipbuilder in the beginning stages of that highly productive sector of the city’s economy. It is Munn’s entrepreneurial function that provides the focus in the following sketch.
Munn undoubtedly learned the “mysteries” of shipbuilding from his father before immigrating to Quebec in or before May 1793. In the 1790s the establishment of big-ship construction in the city implied a transfer of skills and capital in person from Britain. Certainly the cumulative evidence about British American shipbuilding in general shows a heavy reliance on Britain for technology (in the wide sense of the term), capital, and markets; the emergence of a native-born shipbuilder before about 1830 is rare.
Munn first appears in Quebec records in February 1794 when he described himself as a “ship carpenter” in a notarial act; by 1803, however, he was calling himself a “shipbuilder.” These descriptions superficially suggest that he rose from journeyman to master craftsman within the craft hierarchy, but in shipbuilding at Quebec at the turn of the 19th century the craft system seems to have been a vestigial formality which bore little weight in the actual economy of shipyards. Apprenticeships, which were common, were clearly used by employing shipbuilders primarily as a legal device to circumvent labour shortages, and the status of master shipbuilder did not entail any special political privilege as it did at Saint John, N.B., where it carried with it admission to the freedom of the city. The change in Munn’s title is more likely explained by what appears to have been a well-observed unwritten rule reserving the use of the appellation of shipbuilder to those who operated substantial yards, as Munn did by the later date.
Henry Eckford was born in Kilwinning, Scotland, to Henry Eckford and Janet Black (a possibly unmarried couple)[1] on 12 March 1775, the youngest of five sons. The family soon moved to nearby Irvine, As a boy, Eckford trained as a ship's carpenter somewhere in Ayrshire, probably in the shipyard at Irvine on the Firth of Clyde.
In 1791, at the age of 16, Eckford left Scotland – to which he never returned – to begin a five-year shipbuilding apprenticeship with his mother's brother, the noted Scottish-born Canadian shipwright John Black, at a shipyard Black had established on the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City in Lower Canada. Eckford proved to be a hard worker and quick learner, with a flair for shipbuilding and ship design. When Black moved to Kingston, Upper Canada on Lake Ontario late in 1792, Eckford followed to continue his apprenticeship, but the two soon went their separate ways, with Black moving back to Quebec City to pursue revolutionary politics and purchase a shipyard in Lower Town from Ralph Gray while Eckford stayed behind in Kingston to continue to learn the shipbuilding trade. In 1794, Eckford joined a Freemason Lodge in Kingston, beginning a long association with Freemasonry.
Adam and Noah Brown were brothers from upper New York State. Noah Brown was apprenticed as a carpenter from 1785 to 1792, and worked in New York until 1804, when he and his brother Adam built the schooner Work at Newark, Upper Canada, (now Niagara-on-the-Lake, Southern Ontario) for the North West Company. In early 1805, the brothers built a whaler at Sag Harbor on Long Island.
Donald McKay was born on a farm on the east side of Jordan River in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, second of sixteen children of Hugh and Ann (McPherson) McKay. His paternal grandfather, for whom he was named, was a Scottish army officer who took up the farm among United Empire Loyalists in 1783.
Education
Donald was equipped only with a common-school education.
Career
Donald emigrated in 1827 to New York where, McKay was apprenticed as a ship-carpenter to Isaac Webb. When his indenture was up and he became a free-lance shipwright, his talents were noticed and encouraged by the leading New York ship-builders. Jacob Bell
Isaac Webb was born in Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, on September 8, 1794. He was the son of Wilsey Webb and Sarah Jessup. Isaac and Phebe had four children. Their son, Eckford Webb was named after the shipbuilder, Henry Eckford. His son, William H. Webb, became a shipbuilder.
In September 1810, Henry Eckford took on the 16-year-old Isaac Webb as an apprentice at his shipyard in New York. In the following years, Eckford would take on many other apprentices who would become important naval architects and shipbuilders, including Jacob Bell, William Bennett, David Brown, Andrew Craft, John Dimon, John Englis, Thomas Megson, Stephen Smith, and Sidney Wright.
On 14 January 1840, Webb died in New York City, at the age of 46, of inflammation of the lungs.
Major Contribution
He invested heavily in innovative marine architecture, and even promoting the concept of new ideas in ship construction.
some model builders enjoy the research, the story behind the models they build. what about expanding that information to the history of ship building and those who excelled in the industry. I wondered if the shipwrights during the war of 1812 on the Great lakes knew one another and exchanged information on design and construction of the ships they built. Who were these guys and where did they learn how to design and build ships? were there schools that taught a formal education of naval architecture? Where these shipwrights just natural talented guys who gained an on-the-job educations?
Starting in modern times if you want to be a "shipwright" a designer, a marine architect i would suspect you cannot just walk into a firm and say "hey i want to build ships" i would think the first question would be what is your education? Is there a hierarchy within the industry today?
The very mention of “Clyde-built” ships used to send shivers of admiration down the spine of mariners across the globe. Scotland, particularly the River Clyde, was once the undisputed powerhouse of world shipbuilding, producing some of the most advanced, reliable, and celebrated vessels in history.
Alexander Munn, shipbuilder and shipowner; b. 26 Sept. 1766 in Irvine, Scotland, son of John Munn, shipbuilder, and Catherine Edward; m. 6 Dec. 1797 Agnes Galloway at Quebec, Lower Canada, and they had 11 children, of whom six died in infancy; d. there 19 May 1812.
Alexander Munn is a shadowy figure. Since his personal and business records have apparently not survived, the only direct evidence about him consists of disparate references found in routinely generated sources such as notarial records, newspaper notices, and ship and church registers. Difficult to work, these sources do not yield a rounded portrait. But the broad picture that emerges clearly indicates he was a leading Quebec shipbuilder in the beginning stages of that highly productive sector of the city’s economy. It is Munn’s entrepreneurial function that provides the focus in the following sketch.
Munn undoubtedly learned the “mysteries” of shipbuilding from his father before immigrating to Quebec in or before May 1793. In the 1790s the establishment of big-ship construction in the city implied a transfer of skills and capital in person from Britain. Certainly the cumulative evidence about British American shipbuilding in general shows a heavy reliance on Britain for technology (in the wide sense of the term), capital, and markets; the emergence of a native-born shipbuilder before about 1830 is rare.
Munn first appears in Quebec records in February 1794 when he described himself as a “ship carpenter” in a notarial act; by 1803, however, he was calling himself a “shipbuilder.” These descriptions superficially suggest that he rose from journeyman to master craftsman within the craft hierarchy, but in shipbuilding at Quebec at the turn of the 19th century the craft system seems to have been a vestigial formality which bore little weight in the actual economy of shipyards. Apprenticeships, which were common, were clearly used by employing shipbuilders primarily as a legal device to circumvent labour shortages, and the status of master shipbuilder did not entail any special political privilege as it did at Saint John, N.B., where it carried with it admission to the freedom of the city. The change in Munn’s title is more likely explained by what appears to have been a well-observed unwritten rule reserving the use of the appellation of shipbuilder to those who operated substantial yards, as Munn did by the later date.
Henry Eckford was born in Kilwinning, Scotland, to Henry Eckford and Janet Black (a possibly unmarried couple)[1] on 12 March 1775, the youngest of five sons. The family soon moved to nearby Irvine, As a boy, Eckford trained as a ship's carpenter somewhere in Ayrshire, probably in the shipyard at Irvine on the Firth of Clyde.
In 1791, at the age of 16, Eckford left Scotland – to which he never returned – to begin a five-year shipbuilding apprenticeship with his mother's brother, the noted Scottish-born Canadian shipwright John Black, at a shipyard Black had established on the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City in Lower Canada. Eckford proved to be a hard worker and quick learner, with a flair for shipbuilding and ship design. When Black moved to Kingston, Upper Canada on Lake Ontario late in 1792, Eckford followed to continue his apprenticeship, but the two soon went their separate ways, with Black moving back to Quebec City to pursue revolutionary politics and purchase a shipyard in Lower Town from Ralph Gray while Eckford stayed behind in Kingston to continue to learn the shipbuilding trade. In 1794, Eckford joined a Freemason Lodge in Kingston, beginning a long association with Freemasonry.
Adam and Noah Brown were brothers from upper New York State. Noah Brown was apprenticed as a carpenter from 1785 to 1792, and worked in New York until 1804, when he and his brother Adam built the schooner Work at Newark, Upper Canada, (now Niagara-on-the-Lake, Southern Ontario) for the North West Company. In early 1805, the brothers built a whaler at Sag Harbor on Long Island.
Donald McKay was born on a farm on the east side of Jordan River in Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, second of sixteen children of Hugh and Ann (McPherson) McKay. His paternal grandfather, for whom he was named, was a Scottish army officer who took up the farm among United Empire Loyalists in 1783.
Education
Donald was equipped only with a common-school education.
Career
Donald emigrated in 1827 to New York where, McKay was apprenticed as a ship-carpenter to Isaac Webb. When his indenture was up and he became a free-lance shipwright, his talents were noticed and encouraged by the leading New York ship-builders. Jacob Bell
Isaac Webb was born in Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, on September 8, 1794. He was the son of Wilsey Webb and Sarah Jessup. Isaac and Phebe had four children. Their son, Eckford Webb was named after the shipbuilder, Henry Eckford. His son, William H. Webb, became a shipbuilder.
In September 1810, Henry Eckford took on the 16-year-old Isaac Webb as an apprentice at his shipyard in New York. In the following years, Eckford would take on many other apprentices who would become important naval architects and shipbuilders, including Jacob Bell, William Bennett, David Brown, Andrew Craft, John Dimon, John Englis, Thomas Megson, Stephen Smith, and Sidney Wright.
On 14 January 1840, Webb died in New York City, at the age of 46, of inflammation of the lungs.
Major Contribution
He invested heavily in innovative marine architecture, and even promoting the concept of new ideas in ship construction.
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