Gourlay Brothers Ship Builders of Dundee
| Private limited company | |
| Industry | Marine engineering Shipbuilding |
| Predecessor | Gourlay, Mudie & Co. (1846-1853) Gourlay Brothers & Co. (1853-1904) |
| Founded | 1904 |
| Defunct | 1908 |
| Headquarters | Dundee, Scotland |
Gourlay Brothers was a marine engineering and shipbuilding company of Dundee, Scotland, active between 1846 and 1908.
The company had its origins in the Dundee Foundry, founded in 1790. By 1820 the foundry was manufacturing steam engines, building engines and boilers for the steam tug William Wallace in 1829, and in the 1830s building locomotives for the Dundee and Newtyle and the Arbroath and Forfar Railways.James Stirling (1800–1876) was manager of the Dundee Foundry until 1846.
In 1846 the Foundry was taken over and renamed Gourlay, Mudie & Co. This company was dissolved in 1853, and then operated as Gourlay Brothers & Co., with four brothers – Alexander, William, Gershom, and Henry Gourlay – as partners.
In May 1854, Gourlay's turned to shipbuilding, leasing land at the east end of Marine Parade to use as a slipway. Their first vessels were built for the coastal trade, but they went on to build a number of cargo ships for the Dundee, Perth and London Shipping Company. The business prospered, largely due to the efforts of Henry Gourlay, a member of the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland and of the Institution of Naval Architects. By 1866 Gourlay's had become the largest of the five shipbuilding firms in Dundee, employing about 300 men, and building 14,000 tons of shipping between 1861 and 1867. In 1867 they launched the Dundee of 1,295 tons, at that time the largest ship built on the Tay. In 1869 Gourlay's leased more land downriver from their yard, which they named Camperdown Dock, enabling even larger ships to be built. In 1871 five vessels were launched, all of more than 1,000 tons. In 1876 seven of the twenty-three ships built in Dundee were launched from Gourlay's yard. However, a serious slump in shipbuilding occurred in the mid-1880s, with Gourlay's building only three ships totalling 4,000 tons in 1885 and 1886. The recovery came with the resumption of international orders; in 1890, Gourlay's built 11,616 tons of shipping, with orders coming from South Africa, South America, India, Russia, Australia, Finland, Turkey and France.
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