Cammell Laird & Company

Cammell Laird

Type	Private Company
Industry	Shipbuilding
Founded	1828
Headquarters	Birkenhead, Merseyside, UK
Key people	John Syvret
Number of employees	Circa 650
Website	www.cammell-laird.com

Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. One of the famous names in British shipbuilding during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The company came about following the merger of Laird, Son & Co. of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co. of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. They also built railway until 1929, when that side of the business was separated and became part of the Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage and Wagon Company.

The Laird company was founded by William Laird, who had established the Birkenhead Iron Works in 1824. When he was joined by his son, John Laird in 1828, their first ship was an iron barge. John realised that the techniques of making boilers could be applied to making ships. The company soon became pre-eminent in the manufacture of iron ships and made major advances in propulsion. In 1860 John Laird was joined in the business by his three sons, renaming it John Laird, Sons & Co. The sons continued it after their father's death in 1874 as Laird Brothers.

Johnson Cammell & Co. was founded by Charles Cammell and Henry and Thomas Johnson: it made, amongst many other metal products, iron wheels and rails for Britain's railways and was based in Sheffield.

In 1903 the businesses of Messrs. Cammell and Laird merged to create a company at the forefront of shipbuilding. The company also built a number of vehicles for the London Underground. An order was placed for 20 trailer cars and 20 control trailer cars in 1919, which were known as , and were the first tube cars to be built with doors operated by compressed air. They ran with converted French motor cars, originally built in 1906. The doors were fitted with a sensitive edge, designed to re-open the door if someone became trapped in it, but the mechanism was too sensitive, and was removed after an initial trial period. The cars continued in operation until 1938, eight years after the motor cars were withdrawn, but following withdrawal, five cars became a mobile training school. Cammell Laird also built a number of vehicles for the Underground. They were one of five builders approached to build a sample car to a general specification, which were put into service in February 1923, and three of the builders subsequently built production runs. The company supplied 41 motor cars and 40 trailer cars in 1923, 25 control trailers in 1924, and a further 48 motor cars in 1925.