John Lewis was born in Aberdeen in 1837 and worked as a ship’s carpenter before starting his own boatbuilding yard at Cove, just outside Aberdeen in 1870. By 1876 he moved to Point Law on Albert Quay in Aberdeen Harbour. The vessels were constructed in wood, the largest at 80 feet., as well as several 55ft vessels for Shearer of Shetland as well as smaller craft. The latter included salmon cobles for the Balmoral Estate, as well as small ferries for use in the Harbour at Aberdeen.
Between 1886 and 1901 the business expanded. The business moved to new premises, had diversified into vessel repairs and salvage work as well as into operating a fleet of four steam trawlers. By 1907 the date of John Lewis’ death the business (now John Lewis & Sons Ltd) had become, in addition to their other activities, the main supplier of steam engines and boilers to the herring drifter fleet. During The First World War John Lewis & Sons expanded into a yard on the Torry side of the River Dee. It wasn’t long before the first vessel, a 165ft coaster WYNDHURST was completed there in September 1917. Unfortunately, WYNDHURST was sunk in December the next year after being torpedoed.
The war brought further orders, including 12 ‘Standard Steam Drifters’ for the Admiralty. These were basically fishing vessels, armed and equipped to undertake patrol work, boom defence and so on. The idea was that after hostilities ceased they could be sold off as fishing vessels. Other Admiralty orders included a tug (HMS FRISKY) completed in 1918.
By 1920 Lewis’s yard had improved their yard and been upgraded and they were also providing coal and bunkering facilities to supply vessels in Aberdeen.
Throughout the 1920’s the yard built mainly cargo vessels and a smaller number of fishing vessels. Some were destined for the Soviet Union such as DRIFTER No1 and DRIFTER No2 both multi-purpose fishing vessels and had strengthened hulls to cope with sea ice.
By 1938, with war in Europe again looming, the yard received priority orders from the Admiralty. Lewis’s completed Boom Defence Vessels that year, BARFAIR and BARFIELD (yard nos. 147 and 148). However, the following years were lean, and it was not until 1941 that the Admiralty placed large orders for newbuilds with Lewis’s. There then followed a stream of vessels of various types including patrol/minesweepers, Boom Defence Vessels, corvettes, landing craft, among others.
Lewis continued to build a variety of seagoing vessels in the years between 1945 and 1972, when the yard was purchased by Wood’s. Although the majority were designed for fishing, other types of vessels were also built in smaller numbers such as cargo carriers, tugs, pontoon docks and the like. In 1966 the order for an offshore supply vessel (OSV) to service the growing energy activity offshore heralded the direction Aberdeen was ultimately to take.
After 1972, following the Wood takeover the yard was to concentrate solely on building fishing vessels, the last of which left the yard in 1983.
Image: Letter from John Lewis & Sons Ltd to Albert Laing (detail)
