Swan Hunter

Swan Hunter, formerly known as "Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson", is a shipbuilding design, engineering and management company. The company was one of the best known shipbuilding companies in the world but ceased shipbuilding operations on Tyneside in 2006.

Based in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, the company was responsible for some of the greatest ships of the early 20th century – most famously RMS Mauretania which held the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic, and RMS Carpathia which rescued survivors from RMS Titanic.

At its apex, the company represented the combined forces of three powerful shipbuilding families: Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson.

History

Swan & Hunter was founded by George Burton Hunter, who formed a partnership with the widow of Charles Sheridan Swan (the owner of a Wallsend Shipbuilding business established in 1852 by Dr Charles Mitchell) under the name in 1880.

In 1903, C.S. Swan & Hunter merged with Wigham Richardson (founded by John Wigham Richardson as Neptune Works in 1860), specifically to bid for the prestigious contract to build RMS Mauretania on behalf of Cunard. Their bid was successful, and the new company, Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd, went on to build what was to become, in its day, the most famous oceangoing liner in the world. Also in 1903 the Company took a controlling interest in the Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Company, which was an early licensed manufacturer of Parsons steam turbine engines, which enabled Mauretania to achieve her great speed.Mauretania was launched from Wallsend on 20 September 1906 by the Duchess of Roxburghe. The firm expanded rapidly in the early part of the twentieth century, acquiring the Glasgow-based Barclay Curle in 1912.