Shipbuilding in Canada and the Development of an Industrial Base in the Early 20Th Century
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Shipbuilding in Canada and the Development of an Industrial Base in the early 20th Century Michael Young Introduction An essential element of any navy is the supporting engineering infrastructure necessary to keep the fleet maintained and repaired when needed. When it was first established in 1910, the branch of engineering directly applicable to the Naval Service of Canada (which became the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in 1911) was marine engineering. In its broadest sense, marine engineering deals with the design, construction, maintenance, support and technical operation of ships and their internal systems. It also embraces the parallel discipline of naval architecture. Naval engineering is a more specialised branch that deals solely with warships. Naval engineering is not confined to the Navy or to government agencies. Its practitioners include the industrial base of the infrastructure of shipyards, engine builders, mechanical and electrical engineering companies, and the myriad of companies, large and small, that supply components, parts and materiel. In 1910 there was a limited capability in naval engineering represented by the naval Dockyards in Halifax and Esquimalt. These yards performed running repairs and routine maintenance, including dry docking, on ships of the Royal Navy (RN). Both yards had been transferred from the British Admiralty to the Canadian Government in 1907 to provide support and running repair services for the ships of the Department of Fisheries and Marine, the precursor of the Naval Service, as well as to visiting ships of the Royal Navy. In addition, there was considerable engineering expertise in Canada related to steam propulsion technology. For example, the first practical compound marine steam engine was invented by the brilliant mechanical engineer Benjamin Franklin Tibbets from New Brunswick, and installed in the Saint John River steamer Reindeer in 1845. Much of this expertise was developed in support of the construction and operation of the railroads. The technology needed for a steam locomotive is essentially the same as that needed for a steam power plant in a ship. The use of the internal combustion engine in marine applications was not yet widespread except in small launches. When the Naval Service of Canada was created, there was a small but substantial and 1 long-standing infrastructure of shipbuilding already in existence in the country. Canada had shipbuilding capability on both coasts and in the Great Lakes region. While it was not as sophisticated as that of Britain or the United States, it could and did produce a variety of capable, small cargo ships and fishing vessels for commercial ownership as well as the specialized vessels plying the canal systems of the Great Lakes. However, there was no Canadian shipyard capable of building the cruisers and destroyers that the government intended to acquire to form the nucleus of the Naval Service. Also, there was a lack of the necessary subsidiary industries, the industrial base, to produce specialized naval equipment and there was limited naval engineering expertise outside the small staff of the dockyards. The modest fleet planned by the government of Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the new Canadian Navy was to comprise four Bristol-class cruisers and six River-class destroyers, identical to those already in service with the RN. The logical approach would be to have the ships built in Britain. This would take advantage of the British expertise, obtain the fastest delivery schedule and keep the acquisition costs to the lowest possible level. Another option considered was to have the first two ships of each type built in Britain while a specialised shipyard was built in Canada. Canadian workers would train in the British yards and assist in the construction. However, the government decided that all the ships should be built in Canada despite the difficulties, a longer delivery schedule and the additional cost. It was, in the view of the government, a worthwhile expenditure to encourage the development of a sophisticated shipbuilding industry - an early example of the use of defence spending for industrial development which became a fact of life in defence procurement following World War II.1 The key to the program was obtaining the plans and specifications for the ships from the Admiralty. With certain constraints on security requirements to maintain the secrecy of the plans and specifications, the Admiralty agreed to provide plans for both the ships and for the requisite upgrades of the Canadian shipyard that would build them. In addition, they would provide technical support and expertise to the shipyard selected to build the ships. The schedule proposed was for a six year program. The first cruiser was to be delivered three years after contract signing with the others following at intervals of one year. The first two destroyers were to be completed within three years and the rest 1 Tucker, G. N., 1952, The Naval Service of Canada, Ottawa, King’s Printer, Vol I, p.163. 2 to follow at intervals of nine months. The deadline for the tenders from companies seeking to build the ships was set as 1 May 1911. There was considerable interest in both British and Canadian shipyards in the program. As many as nineteen companies corresponded with Naval Service Headquarters (NSHQ) throughout 1910. Of the seven proposals received, six offered to build the ships in Canada while the seventh misread the tender documents and prepared a bid based on a build in Britain. This latter bid demonstrated the premium the government would have to pay for building in Canada. Three of the bidders were Canadian, one of which proposed a consortium with two famous British shipbuilders. The prices offered for the build in Canada solution ranged from a high of $13.1 million to a low of $11.3 million - roughly a billion dollars in today’s currency. The bid from the company which priced a build in Britain was just over $8.5 million showing a premium of more than $3 million to meet the requirement of the government. Laurier’s plan never came to fruition as his government lost power in the general election of 1911, before the negotiations for the contract were completed. The incoming government of Sir Robert Borden did not accept any of the tenders for the construction of the ships. Deposits from the bidders were returned and the ambitious program died and the new Navy would barely survive with obsolete cast-offs from the Royal Navy. It would be almost another generation before major warships would be built in Canadian shipyards for the RCN. The potential for a strong industrial base for a viable naval force would diminish until the onset of World War II. Shipbuilding World War I was a stimulus for the Canadian shipbuilding industry, especially on the West Coast, and this laid the foundation for the formation of the industrial base which produced such outstanding results later in the 20th Century. There was a healthy and thriving wooden shipbuilding industry in British Columbia but no yard had the capability to build steel ocean-going ships. With one exception, the steel ships in coastal service on the West Coast had all been built elsewhere, primarily in Britain because of favourable tariffs. The exception was the coastal vessel S. S. Princess Maquinna. Built in 1913 by the Bullens shipyard in Esquimalt (bought in December 1913 by Yarrows of Scotland) for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, she was the first steel steamship to be built in BC. However, the need to service and repair the coastal trade fleet had 3 produced an influx of marine engineering expertise and talent to the region in the early years of the 20th Century as the trade flourished. The initial wartime production on the West Coast was almost exclusively wooden sailing ships built for the lumber trade. Direct subsidies and favourable financing from both the government of BC and the Federal Government were made available to the shipyards to ensure an adequate supply of vessels for the export trade which was vital to the BC economy. As the war progressed and merchant ship losses mounted, orders came from the British Imperial Munitions Board (IMB) in 1916 and 1917. The first orders were for 28 wooden cargo steamers of 2300 gross tons of a standard British design. They were built by six different yards in Vancouver and Victoria2. They were not a success having been built with unseasoned lumber which made them short- lived and their cargo capacity was limited. Subsequent orders from the IMB were for standard designs of steel cargo ships that were awarded to J Coughlan & Sons of Vancouver, BC and to Wallace Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. Ltd., of North Vancouver. Coughlan built seven dry cargo ships of 8,800 tons (deadweight) and Wallace produced three smaller ships of 4,600 tons3. The first ship launched was the War Dog at the Wallace yard in May 1917 and it became the first steel steamship for ocean-going service ever built in Canada. When the Coughlan yard launched the S. S. Alaska, the first of its IMB order, it was the largest ship ever built in Canada at that time. The shipyards in the Great Lakes region, in Quebec and on the East Coast also produced steel and wooden ships to the standard designs for the IMB. Contracts were issued for a total of 35 steel ships of various tonnages but only 29 were actually completed before the end of the war. The largest orders went to Polson Ironworks Ltd. of Toronto (eight of 3,500 tons), Port Arthur Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. (one of 4,300 tons and six of 3,500 tons) and Canadian Vickers Ltd. In Montreal (six of 7,200 tons).