Historic links

Mirinda said, tonight, that my job at the Science Museum is sometimes like genealogy; creating family trees for companies rather than people. And she’s right. Today, for instance, I had to unravel quite a convoluted little knotted ball of twisted branches.

It started with Nick (at work) asking me to find out about a company called Alexander Hall and Sons Ltd. I’d like to say I found it only that proved quite impossible.

Alexander Hall was a shipwright who lived in Aberdeen. He worked for a company called Cochar and Gibbon, eventually taking it over and renaming it Alexander Hall & Co. He was an excellent businessman and trusted ship builder. He made his company a huge success. And, I assume, he made a lot of money.

He and his wife had an awful lot of children. Most didn’t survive but two of them, James and William, not only survived but they followed in their dad’s footsteps, taking over the company when he died.

James and William appear to have been quite canny as well. While they were building ships, they needed to order the engines from elsewhere. This didn’t sit very well so they decided to do something about it.

Getting together with a marine engineer from Glasgow called Thomas Russell, the two Hall boys, created Hall, Russell and Co in order to make the engines for Alexander Hall and Co. Not only that but, to make it even easier, they built them in the shipyard next door.

Things then took a bit of a turn for the worst in the 1860’s. Alexander Hall and Co held 50% of a rope factory which was suddenly in a great deal of debt. The shipbuilder found itself trying to find £40,000 double quick, to pay off it’s share of the debt. And then, just to rub a bit of salt into the gaping wound, a customer reneged on the purchase of a ship, leaving them with a £4,000 ship they could have done without.

It was around this time that Hall, Russell and Co, decided to start building their own ships. This strategy worked well and the parent company managed to right itself on the waves of financial ruin.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, both companies became incorporated, giving the directors a little more protection and allowing them to put ‘Ltd’ after their names. At this time, the shipbuilding industry in Aberdeen was starting to wind down and, at the turn of the century there were only three of them left. Alexander Hall & Co Ltd and Hall, Russell & Co Ltd were two of them.

Hall & Russell bought out the capital in Alexander Hall and things were still rosy. During the first world war, both shipyards were kept busy making minesweepers and other small ships for the war effort. While this kept them both afloat, it was a rather long winded nail in the coffin for Hall’s. When, in 1977, the shipyards were made public companies by the government, they were designated as only good for naval vessels even though Hall’s had been very proficient in the manufacture of passenger liners.

Both shipyards were eventually closed, bringing an end to, not just the Hall family’s dominance of ship building, but also to shipbuilding in Aberdeen in general.

As for Alexander Hall & Sons Ltd…It never existed as far as shipbuilding was concerned. I did find a construction company of that name which, surely had something to do with the Hall empire, but that was beyond my remit.

I love my job, so much.