Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering, Ltd (VSEL) was a
shipbuilding company based at
Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 t ...
, Cumbria in northwest England that built warships, civilian ships, submarines and armaments. The company was historically the Naval Construction Works of
Vickers Armstrongs
Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, wi ...
and has a heritage of building large naval warships and armaments. Through a complicated history the company's shipbuilding division is now
BAE Systems Submarine Solutions
BAE Systems Submarines,BAE Systems Submarine Solutions was split out from BAE Systems Marine and operated as such until January 2012. It was named BAE Systems Maritime - Submarines until 2017 before it became BAE Systems Submarines. is a whol ...
and the armaments division is now part of
BAE Systems Land & Armaments.
History
The company was founded in 1871 by
James Ramsden as the Iron Shipbuilding Company, but its name was soon changed to Barrow Shipbuilding Company.
In 1897, ''Vickers & Sons'' bought the ''Barrow Shipbuilding Company'' and its subsidiary the ''
Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company
The Maxim-Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company was the result of a takeover by Hiram Maxim of Thorsten Nordenfelt's Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company in 1888. Rothschild issued £1.9 million of shares to finance the merger. Nathan Rothsc ...
'', becoming ''Vickers, Sons and Maxim, Limited''. The shipyard at Barrow became the Naval Construction & Armaments Company. In 1911 the company was renamed ''Vickers Ltd'', and in 1927 became ''
Vickers Armstrongs Ltd'' after a merger with
Armstrong Whitworth
Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. With headquarters in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth built armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and ...
, whose shipyard at
High Walker
Walker is a residential suburb and electoral ward in the south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
History
The place-name 'Walker' is first attested in 1242, where it appears as ''Waucre''. This means 'wall-carr', that is to say, 'the marsh b ...
on the
River Tyne
The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Wat ...
became the "Naval Yard".
In 1955 the name of the shipbuilding division changed to ''Vickers Armstrongs Shipbuilders, Ltd'' and changed again in 1968 to ''Vickers Limited Shipbuilding Group''.
[Waymarks: BAe Systems Barrow]
/ref>
The shipbuilding group was nationalised
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to p ...
under the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act in 1977 and subsumed into British Shipbuilders
British Shipbuilders (BS) was a public corporation that owned and managed the shipbuilding industry in Great Britain from 1977 through the 1980s. Its head office was at Benton House in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
History
The corporation was ...
.[
The ex-Vickers yard at Barrow was the first shipyard of the British Shipbuilders group to return to the private sector. It was sold in March 1986 to an employee-led company, VSEL Consortium, which also included its ]Birkenhead
Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liv ...
-based subsidiary, Cammell Laird
Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, ...
. The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
in December 1986.
In 1988, a mistake by senior management and changing shipbuilding methods meant that the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 t ...
accidentally welded part of (a nuclear submarine
A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, but not necessarily nuclear-armed. Nuclear submarines have considerable performance advantages over "conventional" (typically diesel-electric) submarines. Nuclear propulsion, ...
) in an upside-down position.
In 1994 VSEL was subject to two takeover proposals, one from GEC and another from British Aerospace
British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...
(BAe). VSEL was willing to participate in a merger with a larger company to reduce its exposure to cycles in warship production, particularly following the "Options for Change
Options for Change was a restructuring of the British Armed Forces in summer 1990 after the end of the Cold War.
Until this point, UK military strategy had been almost entirely focused on defending Western Europe against the Soviet Armed Forces, ...
" defence review after the end of the Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
. Both bids were referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission
The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under ...
(MMC) which issued its conclusions and advice to government in May 1995. BAe's bid was approved, while the MMC concluded (with two of 6 members dissenting) that GEC's bid was likely to "operate against the public interest". However it was GEC's bid that was approved and accepted by VSEL, since Secretary of State Michael Heseltine
Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician and businessman. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket. Heseltine served ...
did not accept the MMC's recommendation and allowed the bid to proceed.
Following GEC's purchase VSEL became ''Marconi Marine (VSEL)'', part of the company's GEC-Marconi division. With the merger of British Aerospace and GEC's defence business – Marconi Electronic Systems – VSEL passed to the resulting company, BAE Systems as part of BAE Systems Marine. In 2003 it became an independent division known as BAE Systems Submarines after BAE systems split its ship and submarine building operations. This was renamed BAE Systems Submarine Solutions in January 2007.BAe Systems Submarine Solutions
/ref>
Ships built by VSEL
See also
* Port of Barrow
* Vickerstown
References
{{Authority control
Companies established in 1871
Defence companies of the United Kingdom
Defunct shipbuilding companies of the United Kingdom
General Electric Company
History of Barrow-in-Furness
Science and technology in Cumbria
British Shipbuilders