Bow, McLachlan and Company

Bow, McLachlan and Company was a Scottish marine engineering and shipbuilding company that traded between 1872 and 1932.

In 1872 William Bow and John McLachlan founded the company at Abbotsinch, Renfrewshire, where it made steering gear and light marine steam engines. In 1900 the company expanded into the building of small ships by taking over J. McArthur & Co's Thistle Works and shipyard at Paisley, also in Renfrewshire. The expanded undertaking became a limited liability company at the same time.

Bow, McLachlan & Co. entered the specialist market for "knock down" vessels. These were bolted together at the shipyard, all the parts marked with numbers, disassembled into many hundreds of parts and transported in kit form for final reassembly with rivets. This elaborate method of construction was used to provide inland shipping for export, or for lakes that had no navigable link with the open sea. The company supplied a number of "knock down" ships to the Uganda Railway for service on Lake Victoria, including the passenger and cargo sister ships Sybil and Winifred (1901), the larger Clement Hill (1905) and cargo ship Nyanza (1907).

Bow, McLachlan developed a good reputation for building tugs, such as Hallgarth (1901), Samson (1903), Roca (1904) and Admiralty paddle tug HMS Robust (1907). The company also built barges, river steamers and small cargo ships. In 1903 the firm shipped the 100 feet (30 m) long shallow-draught cargo steamer Myee to Australia "in sections for re-erection at Sydney". Ships built in 1904 included the sail and steam-powered cutter HMS Argus for HM Coast Guard and the steam yacht Hildegarde for Lord Pender. In 1906 Bow, McLachlan built cable layer ships for two of Sir John Pender's telegraph companies: Cormorant for the Western Telegraph Co. and Sentinel for the Eastern Telegraph Co.

...
Wikipedia