Thomas Morton (8 October 1781 – 24 December 1832) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

shipwright Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. In modern times, it normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces i ...

and inventor. His most widely known invention is the

patent slip A patent slip or marine railway is an inclined plane extending from shoreline into water, featuring a "cradle" onto which a ship is first floated, and a mechanism to haul the ship, attached to the cradle, out of the water onto a slip. The mar ...

Biography

Morton was born in

Leith Leith (; ) is a port area in the north of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith and is home to the Port of Leith. The earliest surviving historical references are in the royal charter authorising the construction of ...

in October 1781 and grew up to become a shipwright like his father, Hugh. After spending some time working for his father, Morton went on to form his own shipbuilding company in the borough which later became S. & H. Morton & Co. Unable to afford the installation of a

dry dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

in his Leith shipyards, Morton "resorted to the process of hauling up

hips In vertebrate anatomy, the hip, or coxaLatin ''coxa'' was used by Celsus in the sense "hip", but by Pliny the Elder in the sense "hip bone" (Diab, p 77) (: ''coxae'') in medical terminology, refers to either an anatomical region or a joint ...

on greased ways". As this method was both dangerous and time-consuming, in 1818 he invented and installed the first

; a

slipway A slipway, also known as boat ramp or launch or boat deployer, is a ramp on the shore by which ships or boats can be moved to and from the water. They are used for building and repairing ships and boats, and for launching and retrieving smal ...

with cradle to haul ships out of the water. This was installed on the

Water of Leith The Water of Leith (Scottish Gaelic: ''Uisge Lìte'') is the main river flowing through central Edinburgh, Scotland, that starts in the Pentlands Hills and flows into the port of Leith and then into the sea via the Firth of Forth. Name The ...

in front of his premises on Cooper Street in

. He was granted a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

for the invention the following year. In 1824 Morton sued John Barclay in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

for patent infringement after he had installed a similar design in the yards of his company, Stobcross, three years before. Barclay's version was described as a poor copy by fellow shipwright William Denny, and the court found in favour of Morton. Despite the popularity of the invention, Morton did not profit from it for the first six years of the patent. A total of 45 slips were built (in Scotland, England, Ireland, Russia and the United States), earning the shipwright a total profit of £5737, before he applied for an extension to the patent in 1832. The extension was denied and instead a

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

select committee awarded Morton the sum of £2500. In his later life he is listed as living at 1 Pilrig Place, a Georgian house on

Leith Walk Leith Walk is one of the longest streets in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is the main road connecting the east end of the city centre to Leith. Forming most of the A900 road, it slopes downwards from Picardy Place at the south-western end of the str ...

. Morton died in December 1832 and is interred in

South Leith Parish Church North and South Leith Parish Church, originally the Kirk of Our Lady, St Mary, is a congregation of the Church of Scotland. Prior to the union with the former North Leith Parish Church in 2024, the building was known as South Leith Parish Churc ...

yard . His company, S. & H. Morton & Co. continued operating.

Family

His son Hugh Morton (1812-1878) continued the family business but moved the main premises from Cooper St/ Coburg St to

on a site later used as a tram depot, attaching his house at 3 Smiths Place.Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1850

Memorials

Thomas Morton Hall, a performance hall holding up to 400 persons and sharing the Leith Town Hall with the

Leith Theatre Leith Theatre (also known as Leith Town Hall and alternatively, in 1975 and 1976, Citadel Theatre) is a theatre located on Ferry Road in Edinburgh, Scotland. It opened in 1932 and ceased operation in 1988. History of the building Leith Theatr ...

, is named after him. It was built in 1925.

Ships built by S. & H. Morton & Co.

* ''Wendouree'', launched in 1882 and wreck in Australia in 1898. * ''Tom Morton'', launched in 1872 for

Christian Salvesen Christian Salvesen was a Scottish whaling, transport and logistics company with a long and varied history, employing 13,000 staff and operating in seven countries in western Europe. In December 2007, it was acquired by France, French listed tr ...

; it was lost at sea in 1886.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morton, Thomas 1781 births 1832 deaths Scottish inventors Scottish shipbuilders People from Leith 19th-century Scottish businesspeople