Yarrow's shipbuilding yard on the Clyde, with two Destroyers being fitted out.

Yarrow & Co frontage on the River Clyde, with two Destroyers in the covered fitting-out basin

Sir Alfred Fernandez Yarrow

1842 – 1932

Sir Alfred Fernandez Yarrow

Founder of a great shipbuilding dynasty on the Clyde

Engineering Achievements

As a young man, Alfred Yarrow co-designed a steam carriage which ran at about 25mph in Greenwich until one hit a mounted policeman who broke his leg – which led to parliament banning steam carriages unless preceded by a man with a red flag. He then turned to building steam launches for river navigation, and then increasingly larger civil and military vessels. Yarrow's fast torpedo boats progressed on to even faster torpedo boat destroyers. He built the first Royal Navy vessel to exceed 30 knots.

Sir Alfred Yarrow was the progenitor of a great shipbuilding dynasty whose business outgrew Poplar in London and he moved it to Scotstoun on the Clyde in 1906 where his first destroyer was launched in July 1908. No less than 29 destroyers, 16 gunboats, 1 submarine, 3 hospital ships and 1 floating workshop were built in the Scotstoun yard during the First World War alone, a huge contribution to ultimate victory. 

His Life

  1. 1842 born at 2 Bury Court, St Mary Axe, London on 13 January 1842, son of Edgar William Yarrow, a merchant, and Esther Lindo
  2. 1857 Age: 15 Apprenticed to Ravenhill, Salkeld & Co, marine engine builders
  3. 1861 Age: 19 with James Hilditch patented a steam carriage and a steam plough
  4. 1865 Age: 23 Entered into partnership with Robert Hedley with works at Folly Wall, Isle of Dogs, Poplar, London
  5. 1868 Age: 26 Building steam launches for river traffic
  6. 1869 Age: 27 Elected Associate Member of Institution of Civil Engineers
  7. 1875 Age: 33 Partnership with Hedley dissolved
  8. 1875 Age: 33 Married Minnie Florence Franklin
  9. 1879 Age: 37 Transferred to Member of Institution of Civil Engineers
  10. 1887 Age: 45 Yarrow water tube boiler installed in warships
  11. 1889 Age: 47 Business moved to larger premises in London Yard, Cubitt Town
  12. 1897 Age: 55 Yarrow & Co. Ltd established
  13. 1906 Age: 64 Moved the entire business to Scotstoun on the River Clyde
  14. 1913 Age: 71 Retired to Hampshire, his son Harold Edgar Yarrow taking over the business
  15. 1914 Age: 72 Returned to the business in Scotstoun when WW1 broke out
  16. 1914-18 Age: 72-76 29 destroyers built by Yarrows during the First World War
  17. 1915 Age: 73 His youngest son, Lt Eric Fernandez Yarrow, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, killed in action on the Yser Canal, Belgium, on 8th May
  18. 1916 Age: 74 Received a baronetcy for war services
  19. 1922 Age: 80 Fellow of the Royal Society
  20. 1922 Age: 80 Married Eleanor Cecilia Barnes on 2 December
  21. 1924 Age: 82 Honorary LLD from University of Glasgow
  22. 1929 Age: 87 Elected Honorary Member of Institution of Civil Engineers
  23. 1932 Age: 90 Died at the Savoy Hotel, The Strand, London on 24 January and buried in Highgate Cemetery

Legacy

His most obvious legacy is the successful shipbuilding business he created, its management inherited by his son Harold, and then Harold's son Eric. The Yarrow business at Scotstoun is now BAE Systems Surface Ships. 

As an engineer, Alfred developed the water-tube boiler and successfully reduced excessive vibration from reciprocating ships' engines, by a method of balancing which became known as the Yarrow–Schlick–Tweedy system, Schlick and Tweedy being his collaborators. His shrouded propellor is still used today on podded propellors, applications include very large cruise ships for their efficiency and reduced emissions. 

Alfred Yarrow was also a great philanthropist giving to many charitable causes in his time, including the National Physical Laboratory (the Yarrow Tank); the Royal Society (for research professorships); the Yarrow Home for Convalescent Children at Broadstairs, Kent; the Nurses Training Home at Govan, Glasgow; the British Association for the Advancement of Science; the Institution of Civil Engineers; the Institution of Naval Architects; Oundle School (the Yarrow Gallery); and Girton College, Cambridge. 

His Obituary in the ICE Proceedings says "He was a man of of unusual greatness of mind and heart, possessing a decided element of genius."

More Information

Eleanor Cecilia Barnes, Alfred Yarrow: His Life and Work. Edward Arnold, 1924

Obituary, Sir Alfred Fernandez Yarrow, Bart. Min. Proc. ICE Vol 234. 1931-32, Part 2. pp 546-550

Fred M Walker: Ships & Shipbuilders. Seaforth Publishing. 2010. pp162-164

Strathblane First World War Group. A Village Remembers, 1914-19. Kessogbank Press, 2014. https://www.strathblaneheritag...

BAE Systems - Heritage: Yarrow & Company (London Years); and Scotstoun

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry (full text available to subscribers and UK library members). Lionel Alexander Ritchie, 2022

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