John Payne Ltd was a shipbuilder in Bristol, England, who built coastal colliers and

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usu ...

s, and small craft such as

tugs A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...

, during the 19th and 20th centuries.

History

Origins

In around 1850, John Payne established himself as a

millwright A millwright is a craftsperson or skilled tradesperson who installs, dismantles, maintains, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites. The term ''millwright'' (also known as ''industrial mecha ...

, engineer, iron founder and

steam boiler Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. ...

maker, inland from the River Avon at Tower Hill in Bristol. In 1859, he branched out into shipbuilding, a natural expansion of his marine business, firstly completing the ''Jane'', a small wooden steam tug. This had to be launched into

Bristol Harbour Bristol Harbour is the harbour in the city of Bristol, England. The harbour covers an area of . It is the former natural tidal river Avon through the city but was made into its current form in 1809 when the tide was prevented from going out per ...

after transportation by truck, and she was used by the company to tow barges with machinery from the wharf near the workshops. Her small size once enabled her to save the crew of a stricken barque in Bristol Harbour. The company built three wooden tugs at Tower Hill, likely including the diminutive 11 t ''Merrimac'', and later built up the towing fleet over a number of years.

Expansion

Following some initial success with wooden-hulled tugs, in 1862 John Payne acquired the former Acraman Yard in Bedminster in order to build iron vessels. A number of these ships were fitted with

steam engines A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

built in his own foundry in Tower Hill. The first iron tug was the ''Emma'' of 1862, and several new construction orders followed for several iron-hulled vessels for local operators. In 1864 the company moved away from the traditional tug building business and built the first coastal collier, the ''Isca'' a

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

-rigged steamer of 65 t. Having built in iron for some years, an experimental composite-hulled design was built in 1865, the ''Cardiff Castle'', a paddle steamer tug of 62 t, later converted to a yacht in 1880 with an unusual dandy rig and wrecked on Cardiff Grounds on 15 April 1897. The same year the ''Kate'' was completed, and these were the first paddle vessels built at the Acraman's Yard by John Payne. The ''Kate'' was a double-ended design which later operated from

Penarth Penarth (, ) is a town and Community (Wales), community in the Vale of Glamorgan ( cy, Bro Morgannwg), Wales, exactly south of Cardiff city centre on the west shore of the Severn Estuary at the southern end of Cardiff Bay. Penarth is a weal ...

beach. The ''Harlequin'' of 1868 was the first tug design with twin screws, which provided superior towage control and had advanced engine arrangements for their day. The same year, John Payne completed two river steamers for Brazil, the ''Corruipe'' and ''Mondahu'', steel twin-screw vessels of 200 t and the largest vessels yet built by the yard. These appear to have been the companies only exports. The steamer ''Henry Allen'', completed in 1874, was even larger at 225t.

A new chairman

In 1880, John Payne Snr. died, and his son also called John took over the running of the firm. By the close of the decade the first steel-hulled vessel was built, the steamer ''Teal'' of 131 t and launched in 1889, although the company continued to also build in iron until 1893. Under John Payne Jnr.'s leadership the company continued to build a steady stream of cargo ships, tugs and a barge ''Bristol Safe'', later rebuilt in 1912 to be the 129 t twin-screw ketch-rigged steamer ''Garthavon''.

Lean years

Things changed in 1910 when John Payne Jnr. died, leaving the company to be run by Mrs. Amelia Payne, who set up a limited company as John Payne Ltd, to run both the shipyard and towage business. The tug ''Bristol Scout'' was the only order before World War I, when three of the company's tugs were requisitioned by the Port Examination Service, with the larger ''John Payne'' seeing service in the Dardanelles in Turkey. A large tug of 134t was ordered by the Admiralty late in the war, and was completed after the armistice as the ''West Winch'' and bought by the company. Both the ''John Payne'' and ''West Winch'' were later sold to C.J. Kings, who operated a fleet of tugs from Avonmouth.Ships Nostalgia: Bristol and Avonmouth Tugs
Retrieved in 20 October 2010

James Towers Shipbuilding Company

With new orders in the early 1920s for two large coasting vessels, the company was sold to new owners James Towers Shipbuilding Co. in 1924. These vessels, the largest built by John Payne, were completed that year, with the ''Reedham'' being the largest at 483 t. The steel cargo ships were later sold to Coast Lines Ltd. and the other to an operator in Canada. Unfortunately the new owners joined the industry at the wrong time, as the

post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...

depression hit the area quite badly, and in 1925 the yard closed itself to shipbuilding, and was reopened by Harry Payne as the factory for Bristol Metal Spraying and Welding Company.

John Payne built vessels

The company built more than 40 vessels. Known ships include: ''Coastal colliers and cargo ships'' *''Isca'' (1864), 65t iron steam screw

*''Enid'' (1867), 88t iron steam screw sloop *''Monmouth'' (1869), 65t iron steam screw sloop *''Ethel'' (1870), 100t iron steam screw sloop *''Pendragon'' (1870), 59t iron steam screw sloop *''Henry Allen'' (1874), 225t iron steam twin-screw

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

*''Ibis'' (1881), 169t iron steam schooner *''Teal'' (1889), 131t steel steam screw ketch *''Reedham'' (1924), 483t steel screw steamer *''Smitham'' (1924), 447t steel screw steamer ''River steamers'' *''Corruipe'' (1868), 200t iron twin-screw river steamer *''Mondahu'' (1868), 200t iron twin-screw river steamer ''Coastal and harbour tugs'' *''Jane'' (1859), 27t wooden steam screw tug *''Emma'' (1862), 22t iron steam screw tug *''Kate'' (1865), 30t iron steam paddle sloop-rigged tug *''Cardiff Castle'' (1865), 62t composite steam paddle dandy-rigged tug *''Dolphin'' (1866), 42t iron steam screw tug *''Harlequin'' (1868), 58t iron steam twin-screw tug *''Leo'' (1871), 95t iron steam paddle tug *''Merlin'' (1871), 19t iron steam paddle tug *''Oberon'' (1871), 56t iron steam screw sloop-rigged tug *''Queen Mab'' (1872), 48t iron steam screw tug *''Star'' (1875), 40t wooden steam screw tug *''Oberon'' (1876), 56t iron steam twin-screw tug *''Elf'' (1876), 53t wooden steam screw tug *''Kimberley'' (1878), 54t iron steam screw tug *''Fawn'' (1878), 29t iron steam screw tug *''Stag'' (1883), 41t iron steam screw tug *''Columbine'' (1886), 60t iron steam screw tug *''Staghound'' (1892), 39t iron steam screw tug *''Antelope'' (1893), 36t iron steam screw tug *''Brunel'' (1895), 36t steel steam screw tug *''Cabot'' (1899), 61t steel steam screw tug *''Gazelle'' (1901), 57t steel steam screw tug *''Contract'' (1907), 38t steel steam screw tug *''John Payne'' (1909), 145t steel steam screw tug *''Bristol Scout'' (1911), 54t steel steam screw tug *''West Winch'' (1920), 134t steel steam screw tug ''Barges'' *''Bristol Safe'' (1904), 106t steel barge Bristol Shipyards - John Payne

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Payne, John Defunct shipbuilding companies of the United Kingdom British companies established in 1859 Manufacturing companies established in 1859 Defunct companies based in Bristol 1859 establishments in England