DOCKYARDS. In the fullest meaning of the word, a “dock-yard” (or “navy yard” in America) is a government establishment where warships of every kind are built and repaired, and supplied with the men and stores required to maintain them in a state of efficiency for war. Thus a dockyard in this extended sense would include slips for building ships, workshops for manufacturing their machinery, dry docks for repairing them, stores of arms, ammunition, coal, provisions, &c., with basins in which they may lie while being supplied with such things, and an establishment for providing the personnel necessary for manning them. But in practice few, if any, existing dockyards are of so complete a nature; many of them, for instance, do not undertake the building of ships at all, while others are little more than harbours where a ship may replenish her stores of coal, water and provisions and carry out minor repairs. Private firms are relied upon for the construction of many ships down to an advanced stage, the government dockyards completing and equipping them for commission.
Great Britain.—Previous to the reign of Henry VIII., the kings of England had neither naval arsenals nor dockyards, nor any regular establishment of civil or naval officers to provide ships of war, or to man them. There are, however, strong evidences of the existence of dockyards, or of something answering thereto, at very early dates, at Rye, Shoreham and Winchelsea. In November 1243 the sheriff of Sussex was ordered to enlarge the house at Rye in which the king’s galleys were kept, so that it might contain seven galleys. In 1238 the keepers of some of the king’s galleys were directed to cause those vessels to be breamed, and a house to be built at Winchelsea for their safe custody. In 1254 the bailiffs of Winchelsea and Rye were ordered to repair the buildings in which the king’s galleys were kept at Rye. At Portsmouth and at Southampton there seem to have been at all times depôts for both ships and stores, though there was no regular dockyard at Portsmouth till the middle of the 16th century. It would appear, from a curious poem in Hakluyt’s Collection called “The Policie of Keeping the Sea,” that Littlehampton, unfit as it now is, was the port at which Henry VIII. built
| “his great Dromions Which passed other great shippes of the commons.” |
The “dromion,” “dromon,” or “dromedary” was a large warship, the prototype of which was furnished by the Saracens. Roger de Hoveden, Richard of Devizes and Peter de Longtoft celebrate the struggle which Richard I., in the “Trench the Mer,” on his way to Palestine, had with a huge dromon,—“a marvellous ship! a ship than which, except Noah’s ship, none greater was ever read of.” This vessel had three masts, was very high out of the water, and is said to have had 1500 men on board. It required the united force of the king’s galleys, and an obstinate fight, to capture the dromon.
The foundation of a regular British navy, by the establishment of dockyards, and the formation of a board, consisting of certain commissioners for the management of its affairs, was first laid by Henry VIII., and the first dockyard erected during his reign was that of Woolwich. Those of Portsmouth, Deptford, Chatham and Sheerness followed in succession. Plymouth was founded by William III. Pembroke was established in 1814, a small yard having previously existed at Milford.
The most important additions yet made at any one period to the dockyard and harbour works required to meet the necessities of the British fleet were those sanctioned by the Naval Works Acts of 1895 and subsequent years, the total estimated cost, as stated in the act of 1899, being over 23½ millions sterling. The works proposed under these acts were classified under three heads, viz. (a) the enclosure and defence of harbours against torpedo attacks; (b) adapting naval ports to the present needs of the fleet; (c) naval barracks and hospitals. Under the first heading were included the defensive harbours at Portland, Dover and Gibraltar. Under heading (b) were included the deepening of harbours and approaches, the dockyard extensions at Gibraltar, Keyham (Devonport), Simons Bay, and Hong-Kong, with sundry other items. Under heading (c) were included the naval barracks at Chatham, Portsmouth and Keyham; the naval hospitals at Chatham, Haslar and Haulbowline; the colleges at Keyham and Dartmouth; and other items.
Great Britain possesses dockyards at Portsmouth, Devonport, Chatham, Malta and Gibraltar, each in charge of an admiral-superintendent, and at Sheerness and Pembroke in charge of a captain-superintendent, together with establishments at Ascension, Bermuda, Simons Town (Cape of Good Hope), Queenstown (Haulbowline); Hong-Kong, Portland, Sydney and Weihaiwei. The Indian Government has dockyards at Bombay and Calcutta. The medical establishments include Ascension, Bermuda, Cape of Good Hope, Chatham, Dartmouth, Deal, Gibraltar, Haslar, Haulbowline, Hong-Kong, Malta, Osborne, Plymouth, Portland, Portsmouth, Sheerness, Sydney, Yarmouth, Yokohama and Weihaiwei.
The arrangements for the administrative control of the dockyards have varied with those adopted for the regulation of the navy as a whole. (See [Admiralty Administration]; and [Navy]: History.) At the present time, whether at home or abroad, they lie within the province of the controller of the navy (the third lord of the board of admiralty); and the director of dockyards, whose office, replacing that of surveyor of dockyards was created in December 1885, is responsible to the controller for the building of ships, boats, &c., in dockyards, and for the maintenance and repair of ships and boats, and of all steam machinery in ships, boats, dockyards and factories. The director of naval construction, who is also deputy-controller, is responsible, not only for the design of ships, but for their construction, in the sense that he approves great numbers of working drawings of structural parts prepared at the dockyards. But the director of dockyards is the admiralty official under whose instructions the work goes on, involving the employment and supervision of an army of artisans and labourers. Instructions, therefore, emanate from the admiralty, but the details lie with the dockyard officials, and in practice there is a considerable decentralization of duties.
The chief function of a dockyard is the building and maintaining of ships in efficiency. The constructive work is carried out under the care of the chief constructor of the yard, in accordance with plans sent down from the admiralty. The calculations for displacement, involving the draught of water forward and aft, have already been made, and, in order to ensure accuracy in the carrying out of the design, an admirable system has been devised for weighing everything that is built into the new ships or that goes on board; and it is astonishing how very closely the actual displacement approximates to that which was intended, particularly when the tendency of weights to increase, in perfecting a ship for commission, is considered.