Scott Lithgow, Limited was a Scottish

shipbuilding company A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...

History

The Company was formed in 1967 by the merger of

Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, often referred to simply as Scotts, was a Scottish shipbuilding company based in Greenock on the River Clyde. In its time in Greenock, Scotts built over 1,250 ships. History John Scott fou ...

and

Lithgows Lithgows Limited is a family-owned Scottish company that had a long involvement in shipbuilding, based in Kingston, Port Glasgow, on the River Clyde in Scotland. It has a continued involvement in marine resources. History Founding The Company ...

.University of Glasgow Archives
/ref> Scott Lithgow was based in

Port Glasgow Port Glasgow ( gd, Port Ghlaschu, ) is the second-largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19,426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16,617 persons. The most recen ...

and

Greenock Greenock (; sco, Greenock; gd, Grianaig, ) is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council areas of Scotland, council area in Scotland, United Kingdom and a former burgh of barony, burgh within the Counties of Scotland, historic ...

on the

lower Clyde The Firth of Clyde is the mouth of the River Clyde. It is located on the west coast of Scotland and constitutes the deepest coastal waters in the British Isles (it is 164 metres deep at its deepest). The firth is sheltered from the Atlantic ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Scott Lithgow 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 pri ...

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 ...

in 1977. Reorganisation of Scott Lithgow in 1981 saw all the assets of its subsidiary companies transferred under the direct operational control of Scott Lithgow. From 1980, the company became the centre of British Shipbuilders’ Offshore Division and it was hoped that the offshore

semi-submersible Semi-submersible may refer to a self-propelled vessel, such as: * Heavy-lift ship, which partially submerge to allow their cargo (another ship) to float into place for transport *Narco-submarine, some of which remained partially on the surface * ...

market would lead the yard back to profitability. However the ''Ocean Alliance'' semi-submersible construction was a disastrous contract for the company, with the rig eventually delivered four years late and at a loss of over £200 million.Scott Lithgow: Déjà vu all over again! The Rise and Fall of a Shipbuilding Company, Lewis Johnman and Hugh Murphy, Research in Maritime History series: No. 30, October 2006. In 1984 Trafalgar House bought the company and the Company ceased to trade in 1993. File:Iolair+plank.jpg,

Iolair ''Iolair'' ( Gaelic for eagle) is a specialised semi-submersible offshore platform designed for BP to support and service oil platforms in the North Sea and served as an emergency support vessel (ESV) in the Forties Oil Field. Since 2000 i ...

being fitted out in 1982 The Glen Yard - geograph.org.uk - 1608628.jpg, Ocean Alliance under construction in 1986

References

Defunct shipbuilding companies of Scotland Companies based in Inverclyde British companies established in 1967 Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1967 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1993 1967 establishments in Scotland 1993 disestablishments in Scotland British Shipbuilders {{shipbuilding-stub