Glasgow And Ships Of The Clyde

Acknowledgments

The vast bulk of data in this site is gleaned from the Clyde Navigation C-TN collection held in the Glasgow City Archives in the Mitchell Library, North Street, Glasgow, and I am indebted to Dr Irene O'Brien and her archivists Nerys Tunnicliffe, Barbara Neilson, Lynsey Green and Michael Gallagher for all their assistance and support in my researches on their huge amount of shipping records encompassing Glasgow, Greenock, Ardrossan, Donaldson Line, William Denny, Fairfields, Henderson Line, etc ...............

And Clyde Port Authority (formerly known as Clyde Navigation Trust) for permission and assistance in obtaining their material for inclusion in this website. 

Also Glasgow University Business Archives have been exceptionally helpful in providing material from Anchor Line, Ben Line, Ross & Marshall and many other Archives.  Particular thanks are for their Permission to Publish their University of Glasgow Archives & Special Collections Anchor Line Collection GB 248 UGD 255/1/31/3 and GB 248 UGD 255/1/29/9 and also their Ellerman Lines Collection GB 248 UGD/131/2. 

And Abigail McIntyre, Curator of Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine, has kindly allowed research of their Irvine Harbour Company records.

And Victoria Peters, Head Archivist and Dr. Anne M. Cameron of Archives and Special Collections, University of Strathclyde Andersonian Library for for their kind assistance and permission to reproduce material from their William Robertson Gem Line T-Gem collection and also their Burns & Laird T-BLL collection. 

Additionally, mention must also be made of the friendly and immense assistance given by the Heritage Centres, Saltcoats and Irvine, for providing the record books and documents of Ardrossan Harbour Company and Ardrossan Dockyard.

And there are many other Businesses, Companies and Individuals, much too many to name, who have freely given their time and effort in sourcing and supplying material. BUT ......

A very great acknowledgement is due to Ally Mackenzie (Facebook profile is Ally Mackenzie) who has courteously, generously and freely contributed many brilliant images to this website.

And why did this website begin ?

The impetus for creating this site www.ShipsoftheClyde.com stemmed from the lifelong passion for ships and the Glasgow Docks of two brothers Billy and Terry Kelly, whom I had known from my childhood.

Both boys were born in the 1930s in a tenement block in Govan, overlooking Prince's Dock.   From their earliest years they were passionately interested in ships, and wandered around the Glasgow Dockland, collecting information and newspaper cuttings and noting the names of ships.  Both vividly remembered the Donaldson liner "Athenia" sailing from Glasgow in late 1939, and she was subsequently sunk by a German U-Boat, starting the Second World War at sea.

In adulthood, both married girls from the next close in the tenement, and the men considered themselves extremely lucky to have wives who shared their interest in shipping.  The two families continued to live in Govan, and stayed close to each other.   On summer evenings, and every Sunday after attending Church, the families would walk together around the docks, savouring the sights and sounds.

In their later lives both men suffered illness and became quite infirm and, sadly, Billy died in July 2010, and, some months later, Terry, also a widower and by then completely blind, was admitted to a nursing home.  He passed away in March 2011.

 At Terry's request, his daughter, Mrs. Caroline MacIntyre, approached me and asked if I would accept the immense collection of cuttings, sailing notices, handbills and records of shipping information which both Billy and Terry had collected for over 70 years, and to put it on the web for others to see.  As Terry often said "This internet business has been going now for ten years and looks like being a permanency."    This website is the result.

Also, Caroline asked if I could include Terry's favourite quotation, which he used to end all his letters and e-mails; this I was glad to do.

   "To be a Star you must shine your own light, follow your own path and don't worry about the darkness, for that is when stars shine brightest."

R.I.P. Billy and Terry

Douglas