Dreadnoughts in Camera: Building the Super Dreadnoughts, 1905-20

by Brian Patterson (Author), RogerD.Thomas (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $5.11

  The construction of British Dreadnought warships between 1905 and 1920 was an enormous financial and industrial undertaking which involved all the major ship builders in Great Britain and two Royal Naval Dockyards. The speed at which these warships could be built became a matter of national importance as Britain was inexorably drawn into an accelerating naval expansion race with Germany. The massive Dreadnought construction programme had to be mediated through the craft skills and working practices of a wide range of dock and shipyard workers. These leviathans of the sea were built at Portsmouth and Devonport naval dockyards and in the private shipyards of Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth, Elswick; William Beardmore, Dalmuir; John Brown, Clydebank; Cammell Laird, Birkenhead; Harland and Wolff, Belfast; Palmers, Jarrow; Scotts, Greenock; the Thames Ironworks, Blackwall; and Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness. A selection of illustrations have been drawn from the archives of Beardmore, John Brown and Vickers, and support the authoritative text. They depict the various stages of Dreadnought construction and are complimented by images of the gun and turbine shops and rolling mills of the major armaments manufacturers employed in the Dreadnought programme.