Robert Howlett's (1831-88) portrait of the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59) posed against a checking drum for the launch of his steamship Great Eastern (still known as the Leviathan) is one of the icons of 19th-century photography. Taken in November 1857, it captured a moment near the end of one of the first large-scale engineering projects to be extensively recorded by the camera. (Precursors included the reconstruction of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, photographed by Delamotte.) Already between 1854 and 1856 a series of construction photographs had been taken by Howlett's sometime partner Joseph Cundall (1818-95). Both men's images were widely circulated either as stereographs or, in engraved form, in papers like the Illustrated Times and Illustrated London News.
Shipyard photography became widespread from the late 19th century onwards, both to document the progress of projects (in order to obtain payments from customers) and as publicity. As in other branches of industrial photography, some big firms, such as J. & G. Thomson (later John Brown) of Clydebank and William Denny Bros. of Dumbarton, Scotland, and Ansaldo of Genoa, established special photographic departments. Others used commercial firms. In the countless small ports where small-vessel building went on, sometimes on the beach, until 1914, recording the process was a routine aspect of many photographic practices, from the Gibsons at St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, to Wilhelm Hester at Puget Sound, Washington. Their images are often of both archaeological and social interest, showing not only materials and work methods but also the ceremonies accompanying keel laying and launch. At the other end of the scale, chief photographer Ornano and his team at the huge Ansaldo works recorded the whole production cycle from steel making to construction, fitting-out, completion, and trials, their pictures eventually supplying a patriotically inflected publicity campaign aimed at customers (Italian and foreign admiralties), shareholders, and the nation at large.
Britain offers many examples of shipbuilding photography in its halcyon period between c. 1880 and 1914. The hull construction of the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought at Portsmouth Dockyard (1905-6) was carefully recorded in 52 photographs—two a day in the first week, then at weekly intervals. Most images were taken from the bow area looking along the various emerging decks towards the stern, and rarely included workers. After the Dreadnought's launch the Admiralty became reticent about having photographs taken of the fitting-out—only six appear to have survived—and few construction pictures were made of the other eight Portsmouth-built dreadnoughts. However, the Portsmouth-based photographers Cribb and Silk captured many dreadnought launches. Both sought to convey the imperial and navalist ethos of ‘launch days’: public spectacles dense with patriotic and imperialist meanings. (In Germany, Admiral von Tirpitz's Imperial Navy Office and the Flottenverein were using warship photographs to promote the idea of naval expansion and, by extension, world-power status; spies from both countries used photography to capture each other's dockyard secrets.)
The rich collection of photographs commissioned by John Brown, Clydebank, now at Glasgow University's Business Records Centre, includes over 1, 000 pictures of the construction of the battleship HMS Barham and five battlecruisers; and of transatlantic liners like the Lusitania, launched in 1906, and Aquitania (1913). The firm's commemorative albums record every phase of warship construction. Its photographers tended to take pictures from three or four set positions, usually from mobile cranes at the berth or dockside. Some pictures emphasize the presence of shipyard workers, and reveal the number of work gangs on a particular ship and the patterns of labour practices. In the later phases of construction ‘the ship’ was frequently caught in profile in order to bring out her lines.
There are few biographical details of the photographers, whether company employees or independents. An exception is Robert Welch (1859-1936) in Belfast, official photographer of Harland & Wolff from the mid-1890s until the First World War. His images range across the shipyard and include the mould loft, the platers' shed, the foundry with moulds and castings, the engine shops including turbine assembly, brass finishing, and valves, the generating station, hydraulic rooms, and pattern makers' shops. The many liners built by the firm included White Star's Olympic (1910) and Titanic (1911), and Welch recorded the former's luxuriously appointed interior.
After the First World War, naval treaties and economic uncertainty depressed shipbuilding, and many firms axed their photographic departments. (John Brown, however, retained a photographer until its closure in 1971.) The launches of liners like the Queen Mary or Normandie, of course, were red-letter days for the popular and technical press, as well as design and fashion magazines. In the later 20th century, photography was still used on an ad hoc basis for purposes of record and publicity. The advent of digital technology gave shipbuilders a highly flexible tool for monitoring their work. Art photographers continued to be captivated by the overpowering bulk and abstract forms of vast hulls under construction or repair.
Reginald Silk Launch of HMS Orion, 20 August 1910, Portsmouth Dockyard
— R. D. Thomas/Robin Lenman
Bibliography
- Powell, R., Brunel's Kingdom: Photography and the Making of History (1985).
- Dewerpe, A., ‘Miroirs d'usines: photographie industrielle et organisation du travail à l'Ansaldo (1900-1920)’,
Annales ,42 (1987). - Moss, M., The Clyde: A Portrait of a River (1997).
- Thomas, R. D., and Patterson, B., Dreadnoughts in Camera (1998)
