John Brown & Company
John Brown and Company of Clydebank was a Scottish marine engineering and shipbuilding firm. It built many notable and world-famous ships including RMS Lusitania, RMS Aquitania, HMS Hood, HMS Repulse, RMS Queen Mary, RMS Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth 2.
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Shipbuilding |
| Founded | 1851 |
| Defunct | 1986 |
| Fate | Shipyard amalgamated into Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS), 1968 |
| Successor | Shipyard sold by UCS to Marathon Manufacturing Company, 1972 John Brown Engineering bought by Trafalgar House, 1986 |
| Headquarters | Clydebank, Scotland |
Key people | George Thomson (founder) James Thomson (founder) Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway (Chairman) Henry McLaren, 2nd Baron Aberconway (Chairman) Charles McLaren, 3rd Baron Aberconway (Chairman) |
| Products | Naval ships Merchant ships Submarines marine engines |
| Parent | John Brown & Company (1899–1968) |
| Subsidiaries | Coventry Ordnance Works |
At its height, from 1900 to the 1950s, it was one of the most highly regarded, and internationally famous, shipbuilding companies in the world. However thereafter, along with other UK shipbuilders, John Brown's found it increasingly difficult to compete with the emerging shipyards in Eastern Europe and the far East. In 1968 John Brown's merged with other Clydeside shipyards to form the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders consortium, but that collapsed in 1971.
The company then withdrew from shipbuilding but its engineering arm remained successful in the manufacture of industrial gas turbines. In 1986 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Trafalgar House, which in 1996 was taken over by Kvaerner. The latter closed the Clydebank engineering works in 2000.
Marathon Manufacturing Company bought the Clydebank shipyard from UCS and used it to build oil rig platforms for the North Sea oil industry. Union Industrielle d'Entreprise (UIE) (part of the French Bouygues group) bought the yard in 1980 and closed it in 2001.