John Laird (shipbuilder)

John Laird (14 June 1805 – 29 October 1874) was a shipbuilder and key figure in the development of the town of Birkenhead. He was the elder brother of Macgregor Laird. He was one of the first to use iron in the construction of ships.

Born in Greenock, Scotland, the eldest son of Scottish entrepreneur, William and Agnes (née Macgregor) Laird, John Laird was raised in Liverpool and educated at that city's Royal Institution.

In 1824 the Laird family moved to Birkenhead, where William Laird and Daniel Horton established the Birkenhead Iron Works. This manufactured boilers near Wallasey Pool. This partnership was dissolved in 1828 and William Laird was joined in his business by John Laird, who had been a solicitor's articled clerk. The company was renamed William Laird & Son.

Laird realised that the techniques of bending iron plates and riveting them together to build ships were similar to the principles involved in making boilers. Laird's first vessel was a 60 ft pre-fabricated iron lighter in 1829 – displacement sixty tons – which was used on canals and lakes in Ireland. This was followed by further orders for more lighters and in 1833 the paddle steamer Lady Lansdowne was built for the same firm.

Many of the orders were for pre-fabricated river steamers. In 1834, he built the paddle steamer John Randolph for Savannah, Georgia, stated to be the first iron ship seen in America. For the East India Company, he built in 1839 the Nemesis, the first iron vessel carrying guns.

In 1839 Lairds built their first screw-propelled steamer, Robert F. Stockton, a 63 ft tug for use on North American waterways. By 1840, Lairds had built another 21 iron paddle-steamers including four gun boats for anti-piracy patrols for the British East India Company. Further orders for paddle frigates included the 1,400 ton HMS Birkenhead (which he designed) of 1848 which was famously wrecked off South Africa with the loss of over 400 soldiers in 1852. Perhaps their most famous vessel was the Confederate raider CSS Alabama. In 1857 the business moved to a new yard upstream from the Woodside Ferry, where it remained.

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