This book is the closest thing to a definitive history of the famous shipbuilding yard. It is more a corporate biography than anything else, however, with a great deal of financial detail about the productivity of the yard over the decades. There is some biographical information about the officers of the company, but little about the life of the average working man.

It covers the company’s story from their very first construction job, the 1508 ton cargo ship Venetian through ship number 1727, the oil ship RFA Fort Victoria, of 30,000 tons. There are some brief references to Titanic scattered throughout the text.

The company was finally forced to close its doors in the early months of 2003, ending a shipbuilding venture that lasted over 140 years.