Poems

The first of the large docks - the Devonshire Dock was opened in 1867. There were great celebrations; a sports day, a salute of guns and a banquet. The magazine "Punch" published the following article:

"Never did Barrow on Furness make such a blaze as did Barrow in Furness the other day, when its docks were opened by Dukes, Lords, Honorable and Right Honorable, MPs, JPs, Mayors, Magistrates, Magnates, Local and Municipal in short by such as assemblage of big and little wigs as it was a triumph to have got together in the dead season. But the occasion was certainly a crown and a crow! A Barrow that has grown, one may say, from a barrow into a coach -and-four in ten years. A Barrow that has swelled almost within the memory of the youngest inhabitant from the quiet coast of some five-score fishermen, into the busy, bustling, blazing, money making, money spending, roaring, tearing, swearing, steaming, sweltering, seat of twenty thousand iron workers, and the crime and culture, dirt and disease, the hard-working and hard-drinking, the death and life, the money and misery they bring along with them! A Barrow out of which they are tipping 600,000 tons of iron every year! A Barrow big enough to hold a Monster Iron-Mining-and Smelting Company, with two Dukes among its directors, to say nothing of Lord knows who in the way of Lords, and Lord knows how many millionaires!!!

1873 The steam yacht "Aries" was launched.

1877 The yard built its first warships, the gunboats, "Foxhound" and "Forward", first of a long line of famous naval vessels

1881 "The City of Rome", a liner of 8400 tons was built for the Inman line.

1882 13 merchant ships were launched.

The golden days of the Barrow built luxury liners will always be remembered in the history of the shipyard. I was there with my dad (a shipwright), and my son on 3 November 1959 when the great "Oriana" was launched. On the day when the 41,923 ton liner sailed into San Francisco 5 February 1961, the city council named it Oriana Day.

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“Pride of Launch Day”  by Wallace Trickett