Modern shipbuilding and the men engaged in it

by David Pollock

Progress in the pure science of naval architecture, as distinguished from the practical application of scientific rules and principles to shipbuilding, is a great and complex subject, and one which it would be impossible to do full justice to here. Before attempting to treat upon these matters as concerned with the period covered by this review, it may be instructive to trace briefly the progress made in the past, and take note of the agencies through which such progress has been effected. In this undertaking, concerned as it is with matters relating to a period prior to that with which the present work chiefly deals, the author has availed himself to some extent of already published works traversing the same ground. As having afforded the needful assistance in this connection, and as being a source to which readers may turn for fuller information, reference may here be made to an article in the Westminster Review of January, 1881, on “The Progress of Shipbuilding in England.” This article, though unsigned, is from the pen of Mr W. H. White, late Chief Constructor of the Navy, and author of the well known “Manual of Naval Architecture.” It furnishes an appreciative and concise account of the literature and the educational agencies connected with the theory of naval architecture, and sketches the influence of science on practice, and vice versa in the profession since the beginning of the present century.

As has already been indicated, the period during which scientific knowledge and methods have had any considerable place in merchant shipbuilding, does not extend back over very many years. In connection with the Royal Navy, however, the study of scientific naval architecture has been fostered and promoted under Government auspices almost from the commencement of the present century; not, however—it must be added—without alternating periods of regard and neglect, nor irrespective of pressure from extraneous sources.

Although progress in this matter has not been solely due to Government agencies, it may be maintained that a large part of the positive and accurate scientific knowledge which now exists has grown out of the exigencies of the naval service, and has come from sources more or less supported by or connected with Government institutions. It will of course be understood that the science of naval architecture is a field in which many besides shipbuilders, and indeed many besides professional naval architects, have laboured with signal success. The fund of knowledge has been enriched, and the practice of shipbuilding improved, by men whose association with the shipyard has been of an indirect and amateur kind, and—it must be added—whose valuable labours the shipyard has often but scantily recognised. Mathematicians—“mere theorists,” as they have been called—have made original investigations and scientific analyses which have upset many previously received practical notions, and established principles, the appreciation of which alone, has led to subsequent progress in actual practice. The part taken by merchant shipbuilders has consisted in the experimental verification, and sometimes the practical correction of principles thus evolved, but even to this extent the service done has been largely incidental. Those considerations which form the economic basis of every commercial concern have naturally circumscribed such service, and only a few notable firms have been able to break through the common restrictions.

The systematic study of scientific naval architecture may be said only to have begun in Britain in 1811, in which year, as the outcome of recommendations made by a Government Commission appointed to inquire into naval construction in 1806, the first School of Naval Architecture was established at Portsmouth, under the direction of Dr Inman, a distinguished member of the University of Cambridge. All the great advances which had been made previously in the science of naval architecture were chiefly due to foreigners, and any one wishing to acquaint himself at first hand with all that was then most advanced would have to consult the learned treatises of such distinguished Frenchmen as Bouguer, Dupin, Euler, D’Alembert, and the Abbé Bossut, of the distinguished Spaniard Don Juan d’Ulloa, and of Chapman, the celebrated constructor of the Swedish Navy. One or two English writers, between 1750 and 1800, had published translations of some of these foreign treatises, but the only original work of any importance was by Atwood, who contributed a “Disquisition on the Stability of Ships” to the proceedings of the Royal Society (1796-98). This contribution was both a criticism and an extension of flotation and stability investigations by Bouguer, and as an example of scientific method applied to exact calculations of the qualities of ships it is still well worthy of study. In 1791 a “Society for the Improvement of Naval Architecture” had been formed, the membership being both numerous and influential, and in 1806 the growing sense of need for improved scientific methods culminated in the appointment of the Commission above mentioned, and in the establishment five years later of the first School of Naval Architecture. This institution existed for over twenty years, over forty students were trained, and the science of naval architecture was greatly promoted through its agency. Almost as a body the students of this school, with their able teacher, deserve the honour of being regarded as the founders of an English literature of naval architecture. Nevertheless, the recognition of Dr Inman’s services, and his pupils’ capabilities as designers, by the naval authorities was of a cold and disappointing nature. Ultimately, however, many of them attained positions wherein their talents found worthy exercise.

After the abolition of the School of Naval Architecture, under Dr Inman, in 1832, no agency for higher education existed until 1848, when the urgent necessity for a steam re-construction of the Navy forced attention to the want of trained men, and resulted in the establishment of a second school at Portsmouth. The principal of this school was Dr Woolley, an eminent graduate of the University of Cambridge. From 1848 on to the present time, Dr Woolley has held a prominent place amongst the promoters of naval science, and the pupils produced by the institution under his directorship have given in various ways good practical evidence of his capability as a teacher. After five or six years of useful work, this second school was done away with, and a third was established in London in 1864, after pressure had been brought to bear upon the Government of the day by the Institution of Naval Architects—an association which was founded in 1860, and which has since had so flourishing an existence.

The new school was placed for a time under the control of the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, Dr Woolley being Inspector-General, and the late Mr C. W. Merrifield, F.R.S., Principal. This school, unlike its predecessors, was not nominally a mere Admiralty establishment, but offered admission to private naval architects and engineers, and did not exclude foreigners. It remained in operation at South Kensington until 1873, when the Admiralty decided to establish the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, and to train their students of naval architecture and marine engineering there. Since 1873, therefore, what may be regarded as a continuation of the third school has been at work at Greenwich, the Admiralty granting facilities for the entry of private and foreign students, much as was done at South Kensington.

The small extent to which this institution has been taken advantage of by private students, or by those whose aim is to equip themselves for service in merchant shipbuilding, notwithstanding the inducements existing in the shape of substantial scholarships, has often been subject of comment. Various reasons have been adduced for this state of matters, but the true cause would seem to be largely concerned with the character of the entrance examinations and with the course of study provided. The subject is well worthy of consideration, and fuller reference will be made to it further on when some educational agencies which have been recently established are under consideration.

At such important junctures in the history of shipbuilding as the introduction of steam power for propulsion in place of sails, and the employment of iron in place of wood for the hulls, precedent and experience lost much of their value under the new conditions. The association of civil and mechanical engineers with shipbuilding at these crises was of immense advantage. Such men as Fairbairn and Brunel, who had previously gained high reputations in other branches, were enabled by their scientific skill in designing bridges and other structures in wrought-iron, to achieve much, and to take the lead in ship design and construction. “To men of this class,” says Mr W. H. White, in the article already alluded to, “careful preliminary investigation and calculation naturally formed part of the work of designing ships; ‘rule of thumb’ was not likely to find favour, even if it had been applicable, which it was not, under the circumstances. At first, much was done on imperfect methods, comparatively in the dark; failures were not rare; yet progress was made, and gradually greater precision was attained, in the attempt to design steamers capable of proceeding at certain assigned speeds when laden to a given draught. In fact, the construction of steamers rendered imperative a careful study of the laws of fluid resistance, and of the cognate investigation of the mechanical theory of propulsion—both of which subjects lay practically outside the field of the designers of sailing ships. The speed of a sailing ship is obviously dependent upon the force and direction of the wind; her designer, therefore, chooses forms and proportions which will enable a good spread of canvas to be carried, on a handy stable vessel. Questions of resistance to the progress of the ship were therefore subordinated to sail-carrying power and handiness in sailing ships; whereas in steamers designed for a certain speed the question of resistance occupies a primary place, seeing that the engine power must be proportioned to the resistance. Consequently, while keeping in view stability, handiness, and structural strength, the designer of a steamer has a more difficult task than the designer of a sailing ship, and the difficulty can only be met if faced intelligently by scientific analysis. Hence it happened, as was previously remarked, that a more general appreciation of the value of scientific methods accompanied the development of steam navigation and iron shipbuilding in the British mercantile marine.”

Another name that must be linked with those already mentioned in connection with the change from wood to iron in shipbuilding, and with the new conditions imposed by the transition from sail to steam, is that of the late Mr John Scott Russell, already referred to at the beginning of this work. In the fields of inquiry so largely opened up at the period referred to, Mr Russell was a most distinguished worker. His advocacy and adoption in practice of special structural principles, as illustrated not only in the Great Eastern but in other vessels, has influenced subsequent practice incalculably, and by his persevering investigations upon the resistance of vessels, and the “wave-line” theory he advanced, as well as by his inquiry into the characteristics of wave motion, he laid designers of that period and subsequent investigators under great indebtedness. His contributions to the literature of the profession—notably his magnum opus, entitled “Modern System of Naval Architecture”—and the large share he subsequently took in the deliberations of the Institution of Naval Architects, and of other societies concerned with shipbuilding and engineering, enhance that indebtedness and remain as permanent records of his skill and originality.

Approaching the period with which this review is more particularly concerned, reference must now be made to the valuable labours of two eminent men, whose loss the profession has had to mourn within recent years. These are the late Professor Macquorn Rankine and the late Mr William Froude, neither of whom was by profession a naval architect, yet both of whom were led by love of the subject to give their matured experience as civil engineers and mathematical experts to the promotion of knowledge in this domain.