Ardrossan - On This Day In History

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GLASGOW HERALD
25 NOVEMBER 1873

THEFT

At Kilmarnock Sheriff Jury Court yesterday MICHAEL JOHN DUNIVAN, a seaman, previously convicted of theft, pleaded guilty to stealing articles of clothing from a court behind houses in Harbour Place, Ardrossan, on the night of the 27th or morning of the 28th ult.

He was sentenced to 6 months’ imprisonment.

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GLASGOW HERALD
25 NOVEMBER 1912

WORK RESUMES AT ARDROSSAN DOCK

Arrangements for the resumption of work by Messrs G. and J. Burns’s dockers were completed on Saturday, and the men were to start at four o’clock this morning.

Messrs Christie & Company’s employees, the Newry boat dockers and pig iron workers will also resume work today.

These men all return on the old conditions, and each is being provided by the Harbour Company with a pass to the docks, in receiving which he binds himself on penalty of being forbidden admittance to go to and from work without holding converse with other workers.

Only the men who were directly employed by the Harbour Company are now idle.

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VESSEL STRANDED
26 NOVEMBER 1909

OURIMBAH

The steel screw steamer OURIMBAH, built by Ardrossan Dry Dock Company Limited to the order of the North Coast Steam Navigation Company Limited, Sydney, New South Wales, and launched on 21st of August 1909, went aground at Chelsea Point, Cape Recife, Cape Colony, while on a voyage to Sydney.

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GLASGOW HERALD
27 NOVEMBER 1929

FOXHUNTING.
THE EGLINTON HUNT

On Monday the Eglinton Hunt met at Monkcastle, when, after passing through the woods surrounding the house, the pack followed out on to the open fields of the hill country, which stretched clear away to the lofty range of moorland hills in the background.

Riding from covert to covert, the field saw hounds draw blank Jeffrey’s covert, the Girtle, and Moss Mulloch. But in the Clay Road gorse their eager notes were heard, although when they broke covert behind their fox scent was so poor they could only feather along across a rushy field to the firs of the Girtle, and so only the field and fallow of stony lanes to pick their way across the stubble to Jeffrey’s covert.

While Andrews held his hounds round this gorse in case his fox had run right through it, a halloa back told the fox was afoot again from the gorse. Cast on his line the pack streamed away over the rolling farmlands, soon bearing right-handed toward the farm of Caddell.

After crossing the Saltcoats-Dalry road the pace quickened, hounds and horses speeding in full cry across many green pastures. They were heading for the lofty moorland hills, but as they rose the pastoral foot-hills the fox gained the wood of Coalhill just below the moors.

OVER THE BOGGY MOORS

A few minutes later hounds were running on the heaths, clustering up the heathery slopes to go chiming in a dappled streak across the shaggy knolls of the Knockewart Hills and then the Rowanside Hills. High on the hills the horsemen found the moors boggy and treacherous to ride, but using the sheep tracks they saw with relief the pack leave the moors for the cultivated land and hunt away down the fields towards the coast between Ardrossan and West Kilbride, till the farm of High Boydston they swung right-handed and led the horses all across the pastures below the heather towards Meadowhead.

They were nearing Law Hill just outside West Kilbride when fox and hounds turned upwards for the wild moorland hills again, but ere hounds gained the Crosbie Moors huntsman and whippers-in got to their heads and stopped them after they had hunted for over two hours, or they might have been lost on the wide moors in the heavy mist and rain that afterwards came on.

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GLASGOW HERALD
28 NOVEMBER 1924

A LONDON CARGO STEAMER

The Ardrossan Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company launched yesterday the cargo steamer URLA, which they have built for the Bowring Steamship Company, London.

The vessel, which will have engines by Messrs John G. Kincaid and Company, Greenock, is 391 feet in length, 53 feet in moulded breadth, and 30 feet 9 inches in depth moulded to upper deck, and of 8480 tons deadweight on a draft of 25 feet.

[Further details of this vessel, including one photograph, are included in the following link:-

https://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?y ... essel=URLA

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GLASGOW HERALD
28 NOVEMBER 1947

SHIPOWNER’S PORTEST AT HIGH WAGES AND LOW OUTPUT

Sir Alfred Read, chairman and managing director of Coast Lines Limited, speaking at the ceremony which followed the launch of the motor cargo vessel BALTIC COAST at Ardrossan yesterday, said that in the pre-war days the ship would have cost about £60,000 to £70,000, but he expected that when she was completed her cost would be in the neighbourhood of £180,000 to £190,000.

“I take the strongest exception to paying a high rate of wages with a reduction in output,” added Sir Alfred, who presided at the function as chairman of Ardrossan Dockyard Limited.

“If this country is to survive and its people are to enjoy a certain status in life by higher wages then they on their part will have to increase their output per man.”

Sir Alfred had declared earlier that a ship-owner who built at the present high cost of production must either be very bold or the biggest fool on earth, and had emphasised that if this country was to recover and go ahead somebody had to take risks. If private enterprise became collective enterprise trouble was bound to follow. Individualism had made Great Britain a great nation, but collectivism, if taken to the extreme, would destroy it.

New appointments to the directorship of the Ardrossan Dockyard Limited were announced by Sir Alfred as having been made that day with the concurrence of Mr Randal Kincaid and his fellow directors. Mr John C. Coleman, a director and general manager of the firm, had been made managing director, and Mr R. B. King, chief draughtsman, and Mr John G. Logan, accountant, had been made directors.

Mr Coleman said the stern frame for the vessel had arrived exactly seven weeks ago, when it was five months overdue. He praised the loyalty and co-operation of the Ardrossan workmen in making it possible to carry out the launch that day.

They looked for a speed of 16½ knots when the BALTIC COAST was on trials, and 13 knots on service.

LACK OF STRENGTH

He mentioned that when he had approached the men to work overtime one had said they were perfectly willing but did not feel fit for it physically because of the food they were getting.

Mr Randal Kincaid, a director of Ardrossan Dockyard Limited and chairman of John G. Kincaid and Company, Greenock, moved a vote of thanks to Sir Alfred.

The BALTIC COAST, which was named by Lady Read, is 265 feet in length, 43 feet in breadth, and 19½ feet in depth, and is designed to carry a deadweight of 2480 tons. Twin-screw machinery constructed by British Polar Engines Limited, Glasgow, is designed to give her a speed of 14½ knots on trials.

[Further details of this vessel, including one photograph, are included in the following link:-

https://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?y ... LTIC+COAST

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THE GLASGOW HERALD
28 NOVEMBER 1912

THE STRIKE AT ARDROSSAN

There are still fully 100 men on strike at Ardrossan.

The employees of Messrs G. and J. Burns, Messrs William Christie and Company, the Newry and Dundalk Steam Packet Company Limited, Messrs William Baird and Company, and the Glengarnock and Iron and Steel Company Limited have all resumed work under old conditions.

The representatives of the Harbour Company state that they are determined to concede nothing further to the dockers, and they decline to have any dealings whatever with the strike leaders.

Arrangements have now been made by the union officials to pay the men on strike at the rate of 15s weekly, instead of 10s weekly as henceforth.

The harbour is still guarded by the police.

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LAUNCH AT ARDROSSAN
29 NOVEMBER 1860

The wooden sailing schooner JAMES – 63 feet in length, 17 feet in breadth, and 7 feet in depth – built by Joseph Russell, Ardrossan, for John Pirrie and Charles MacEachran, Campbeltown, was launched on the above date.

[Further details of this vessel are contained in the following link:-

https://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?y ... ssel=JAMES

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VESSEL STRANDED
29 NOVEMBER 1976

The motor vessel PACIFIC COAST, built by Ardrossan Dockyard Limited for Coast Lines Limited, Liverpool, and launched on 9 November 1947, was stranded on Port Rashid breakwater, Dubai, while on a voyage from Abadan to Bombay in ballast.

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GLASGOW HERALD
29 NOVEMBER 1915

FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENT

On Friday night, while crossing the Caledonian railway line at Ardrossan Harbour, JOHN BARBOUR, Glasgow Street, Ardrossan, was knocked down by a goods train and instantaneously killed. He was 82 years of age, and was at one time draughtsman in Messrs Barclay’s yard at Ardrossan, and afterwards was foreman carpenter for many years in the Ardrossan shipyard when it was owned by Messrs Barr and Shearer.

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LAUNCH AT ARDROSSAN
30 NOVEMBER 1948

The motor vessel EL HALAL – 291 feet in length, 42 feet in breadth, and 18 feet in depth – built by Ardrossan Dockyard Limited for Halal Shipping Company Limited, London, was launched on the above date.

[Further details of this vessel, including one photograph, are included in the following link:

https://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?y ... l=EL+HALAL

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GLASGOW HERALD
30 NOVEMBER 1877

THEFT BY A FOREIGN SAILOR

At Kilmarnock Sheriff Court yesterday, GIOVANNI BON, an Italian Sailor, was charged with having, on the 21st November, stolen a gold chain and locket and a pair of gold ear-rings from the public house of Mrs Barclay in Princes Street, Ardrossan.

The prisoner pleaded guilty, but explained through an interpreter that he had committed the theft in order that he might be taken into custody, and so be saved from sailing with his ship to Demerara, being afraid of yellow fever and desirous to get home to his wife and child.

The Sheriff taking a lenient view of his case on account of his being a foreigner and already having been already in custody some days in jail, sentenced him to 30 days imprisonment.