The British Empire in the 19th century was completely reliant on large ships and the ability to produce them was this pivotal necessity of the empire for trade, collecting taxes or goods, and to protect its lands at home and abroad.  Up until the 1840’s most of Britain’s shipbuilding was in London where they utilized the river Thames for seafaring.  Yet at this time, shipbuilding was moved northeast, predominantly to Scotland due to new methods of industrialization.(Picard, 90)

Scotland embraced shipbuilding during the later half of the 19th century with vigor. London’s shipyards had been too built up with old technologies and were no longer as efficient due to lack of access to railroad tracks. More importantly Scotland did have room for new modes of transportation and geographically it was closer to ore production and big rivers.(Black and MacRaild, 202)  Rivers provided transportation of goods and boats, whereas when shipbuilders switched from wood to iron for shipbuilding, they purposely created an incredibly convenient method to use experienced ore smelters for the shipbuilding process as well.(Picard, 21) With the switch of building materials for British ships, the change in how they were powered was directly linked.  Steam engines became a must, with the Crimean war (1853-56) as incentive to upgrade Britain’s Military.  By 1856 Queen Victoria’s fleet was comprised of 247 ships with steam engines out of 254 total.(Biddle, 108)

The Industrialization of shipbuilding may have created the economic situation for Scotland to benefit, but for the individual worker their job only became more difficult.  Statistically Injuries became much more common for workers in general, specifically Eye injuries and burns increased dramatically when workers built with iron instead of wood.(Biddle 112).  Historically the location and materials used in shipbuilding revolutionized because of the industrialization of Britain and the importance shipbuilding had on the Empire.

- Eric Bly