50°53′43.44″N1°22′56.76″W / 50.8954000°N 1.3824333°W /50.8954000; -1.3824333
 | |
| Company type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Shipbuilding |
| Founded | 1866 |
| Defunct | 1966 |
| Fate | Merged withVosper & Company |
| Successor | Babcock International VT GroupVT's Shipbuilding Operations merged with those ofBAE Systems[1] |
| Headquarters | Woolston,Southampton, UK |
John I. Thornycroft & Company Limited, usually known simply asThornycroft, was a Britishshipbuilding firm founded byJohn Isaac Thornycroft inChiswick in 1866. It moved toWoolston,Southampton, in 1908, merging in 1966 withVosper & Company to form one organisation calledVosper Thornycroft. From 2002 to 2010 the company acquired several international and US-based defence and services companies, and changed name to the VT Group. In 2008 VT's UK shipbuilding and support operations were merged with those ofBAE Systems to create BVT Surface Fleet. In 2010 remaining parts of the company were absorbed byBabcock International who retained the UK and international operations, but sold the US based operations to the AmericanJordan Company, who took the nameVT Group.
John Isaac Thornycroft had shown shipbuilding ability when, aged 16, he began building a small steam launch in 1859. The vessel was namedNautilus and in 1862 it proved to be the first steam launch with enough speed to follow the contenders in theUniversity race. The ensuing publicity prompted his father, the sculptorThomas Thornycroft, to purchase a strip of land along the Thames atChiswick in 1864, and that became the start of John I. Thornycroft & Co.[2][3]
In its first ten years the yard had a very modest production, mostly building steam launches and steamyachts. The breakthrough came in 1873, when the firm built the small steeltorpedo craftRap for theNavy of Norway, followed by similar boats for other navies, and byHMS Lightning for theRoyal Navy in 1877. Torpedoes andtorpedo boats were seen as weapons of the future and throughout the 1870s and 1880s the Thornycroft yard became a major supplier to a number of navies. As Banbury put it:
No high-pressure salesmanship was needed to sell torpedo-boats in the nineteenth century; on the contrary, the customers queued up.
— Philip Banbury[4]
The original boats hadlocomotive-type boilers but, like its competitors, the company developed awater-tube boiler, patented in 1885 and providing more speed. The size of the vessels grew steadily, exceeding 100 tons withAriete, delivered to Spain in 1887 and 200 tons in theDaring-class torpedo-boat destroyers of the Royal Navy. The largest vessel built at Chiswick was theAlarm-class torpedo gunboatSpeedy of 810 tons. During the 1890s it became increasingly difficult for the new vessels to pass under theHammersmith Bridge – masts andfunnels had to be lowered or removed, and put back in place again further down the Thames, and if something went wrong during trials and the boat had to return to the yard, then the whole process had to be reversed. In 1904 the former Oswald Mordaunt yard[5] atWoolston was acquired from Mordey, Carney & Co, and production of larger ships gradually moved there. At its peak, the yard at Chiswick employed 1,700 men. The production of destroyers at the yard caught the imagination of the writerH. G. Wells, who let George Ponderevo, main character of the bookTono-Bungay, become a destroyer designer in the last chapter, describing a test run of the destroyerX 2 under the Hammersmith Bridge and out into the open sea.[6] The Church Wharf, Chiswick yard finally closed in August 1909.
In the years at Chiswick, John Thornycroft increasingly concentrated on the design and development part of the enterprise, while his brother-in-law since 1872, John Donaldson (1841-1899), managed the commercial side. When Donaldson died in 1899, a group of industrialists headed byWilliam Beardmore bought into the company, and they provided much of the financing when it was transformed into the public companyJohn I. Thornycroft and Co. Ltd in 1901, with Beardmore as chairman. William Beardmore's interest in the company proved rather short-lived and he resigned as chairman in 1907.[7] The management team of the new company consisted of John Thornycroft's son,John Edward Thornycroft as manager, and John Donaldson's son, Thornycroft Donaldson (ca. 1883–1955) as technical director.[8]
The first ship built by Thornycrofts for the Royal Navy at the Woolston Yard was theTribal-classdestroyerHMS Tartar. Up to the start ofWorld War I, the yard built 37 destroyers for the Royal Navy and several more for other navies. During the war, the yard made 26 destroyers, 3submarines and a large number of smaller craft for the Royal Navy.[9] Notable among the smaller craft were theCoastal Motor Boats (built at Hampton – see below), based on a design by John Thornycroft (the elder) who continued working with hull designs at his home on theIsle of Wight until his death in 1928, taking out his last patent in 1924.[10] His daughter, naval architectBlanche Thornycroft worked alongside him (and after his death) testing models, calculating and recording results.[11]
The construction of smaller boats did not move to Woolston, but to a new yard (Hampton Launch Works) onPlatt's Eyot in the Thames atHampton. The construction on Platt's Eyot included yachts and – during the two world wars – a large number of small vessels for the Royal Navy. The yachts includedEnola (1928),[12]Estrellita (1934) (now calledRake's Retreat),[13]Aberdonia (1935),[14] andMoonyeen (1937).[15] The pre-war motor yachtPrunella[16] may also have been built at Hampton. These four have survived and are now recorded onNational Historic Ships' National Register. Four boat sheds on the site survived until 2021 when they were largely destroyed by fire.[17]
In the inter-war years there was still some construction for the Royal Navy at Woolston, but the yard also built civilian ships, like theferrySS Robert Coryndon forUganda in 1930. She apparently still survives, but as a half-submerged wreck on the shore ofLake Albert. WhenWorld War II broke out, production was stepped up again, and the yard builtcorvettes and destroyers. Production was delayed by several bombings, probably influenced by the yard's proximity to theSpitfire-buildingSupermarine factory, also situated in Woolston. That factory was bombed extensively in the beginning of the war, and Thornycroft's yard received its fair share of the bombs. Among the more notable ships built by the yard in the war years were the twoHunt-class destroyer escorts, HMSBissenden andHMS Brecon, (Type IV) with better stability than theirsisters. The largest naval vessel built at Woolston during the war years was the fastminelayerHMS Latona of 2,650 tons, with turbines capable of 72,000shaft horsepower (53,690 kW) and a speed of 40knots (74 km/h; 46 mph).[18]
The first seaworthy Assault Landing Craft (ALC), later renamed LCA,Landing Craft Assault, ordered built for the British Navy were by Thornycroft. The first prototype ALC No 1 was built byJ. Samuel White of Cowes to a design byFleming Jenkin, but it was not very successful. Thornycroft's design was much closer to what the navy wanted, with its low silhouette, silenced engines and shallowdraught. Designated ALC No 2, it was 41 ft 6 in (12.6 m)long overall and driven by two Ford V8 engines of 65brake horsepower (48 kW) each. The design was slightly modified by theAdmiralty and some 1,929 were built during World War II. In 1944 sixty were being built each month. The LCA was reasonably seaworthy, so long as waves were less than 5 ft (2 m) high. In heavy seas the situation could become critical and a number of LCAs converted to support craft disappeared in the choppy seas ofD-Day, 6 June 1944. In 1944 267 were lost (out of 371 losses during the whole war).[19]
In 1955, the company builtScillonian, a passenger ferry built for theIsles of Scilly Steamship Company.
In July 1960John Ward Thornycroft, John Edward Thornycroft's son, replaced his father as chairman of the company.
In 1962, John I. Thornycroft and Sons was building wooden yachts in Singapore.[20]
In 1966, Thornycrofts merged withVosper & Company, part of the David Brown Group, to form one organisation called, by 1970, Vosper Thornycroft. The merger made sense, because Thornycroft had yard space but few orders, while Vosper had the orders but lacked space. The combined company built new facilities at Woolston and production continued there until 2004. However, by 2003, the company had outgrown even those facilities, and it was decided to move production to a new yard atPortchester,Hampshire.[21]
Later, Vosper Thornycroft changed its business name to VT Group and, in 2010, was absorbed byBabcock International,[22][23] which integrated the UK portion of VT Group into its own business. In 2012, Babcock sold the US-based operation, and theVT Group name, to theJordan Company.[24] Shipbuilding successor of Thornycroft continues asBAE Systems Surface Ships in Portsmouth.
