Whitby maritime: History of ship and boat building in Yorkshire coast town including benefits and challenges ahead of its fish and ships festival in spring 2025

Ship and boat building in Whitby was a significant and central trade between the 17th and 19th centuries and the industry led the way for many other industries in the town including rope-making and sail-making.

The town was the second biggest ship building port in England and Wales in 1792 and 1793 and the building continued throughout the 20th century but on a smaller scale.

Ships and boats were instrumental in importing goods and trade as Whitby relied heavily on this mode of transport due to the position of the town being hard to reach before the introduction of railways.

During the peak of the ship and boat building industry in Whitby in the 1790s, the town was listed as the third largest building centre for boats after London and Newcastle.

Whilst the western side expanded through the 18th and 19th centuries by the ship and boat building industries, the east side of Whitby grew as the fishing village.

In spring 2025, the town will host its annual Fish and Ships Festival which will take place from Saturday, May 17 to Sunday, May 18, 2025.

It celebrates the rich fishing heritage with a weekend filled with cooking demonstrations by local chefs, interactive fish craft displays, street performances and a busy programme of live music and entertainment.

History of ship and boat building in Whitby

1700s

During Whitby’s early history, it was a small collection of buildings clustered around the east cliff side of the present-day town and under the cliffs was the church and abbey.

The town was considered the sixth largest port in Britain by 1706, having more than 130 vessels built in Whitby

Whilst the peak ship and boat building thrived from the early-1700s, the town has had a fishing fleet since at least the 14th century. The town also had many dry docks where ships were preserved and maintained during the 18th and 19th centuries. The dry docks at Whitby were the first in Yorkshire and only the second behind those in Portsmouth.

Ship building on an industrial scale appeared to have begun around 1717, when Jarvis Coates launched William and Jane, a three-masted vessel weighing 237 tonnes.

The mass building of maritime vessels is thought to have started around 1730 but it was still considered a small operation compared to fishing fleets at Robin Hood’s Bay and other areas of the Yorkshire Coast. However, in the 1730s, the upper harbour at Whitby expanded and more fishing boats were built.

The maritime industry resulted in many other industries including rope-making and two roperies were on the eastern bank and they were used until just after the First World War.

Producing cloth was also a prominent trade during this time and the yardage of cloth made in the late 1770s was around 5,000 yards long every year and was mostly supplied to the Royal Navy in London.

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Timber yards were among the main functions of the town before iron and steel in ship building were introduced; timber, hemp, flax and tar were all crucial for building ships and many of these were imported from the Baltic States by ships.

However, many ships in Whitby were in for repair when the Gulf of Riga often froze over during the winter season and this resulted in a rise in the number of dry docks in the harbour area.

The industry reached its peak during the 1790s with nearly 12,000 tonnes of shipping launched in the year from 1790 to 1791 and made Whitby the third largest producer of shipping in Britain after London and Newcastle, with Hull, Liverpool, Yarmouth, Whitehaven and Bristol being less productive than Whitby.

1800s

A dip in the ship building industry occurred when a peace treaty was signed between the warring parties at the cessation of the Napoleonic Wars, but by the 1830s, it was on the rise again.

The yard of Turnbull and Son switched to building ships made of iron instead of wood in 1870 and a year later, the company launched the first Whitby-built steamship, SS Whitehall.

The number of ships and overall tonnage grew steadily and provided an impressive income to the yard. In 1882, they launched eight ships with a collective weight of more than 13,000 tonnes.

The following year saw a depression in the market that led to Turnbull only launching four ships with a combined weight of 7,000 tonnes and the company launched their last vessel, SS Broomfield, in 1902, which brought an end to the ship building industry in Whitby as they were considered the last prominent ship builders.

Another reason for the diminishing of the ship building business was that steel and iron were the main materials that ships were made from by the turn of the 20th century.

What were the benefits and issues with ship building in Whitby?

The ship building industry in Whitby came with many benefits such as it being a safe place for ships travelling from storms in the North Sea and it was a pit-stop for ships to resupply.

Whitby also became a vital harbour of refuge and the sixth largest port in England by the second half of the 18th century.

Whitby’s ship building trade was instrumental in the rise of timber, pitch and hemp for building the sails, ships and ropes.

The coastal town was also instrumental in the development of the whale fishery after 1750, Whitby’s ships also transported coal from the coalfields of northern England to London and the ship building industry provided a surge of employment in Whitby.

However, the industry also came with its challenges such as the isolated position of Whitby from the rest of Yorkshire by moorland meant that it was difficult to transport oak trees from the Vale of Pickering area to the shipyards.

It was also a life-threatening risk during stormy conditions and when 15-20 vessels took refuge in Whitby harbour every year, this made it a challenge for the RNLI station to respond to emergencies.

Properties were also at risk during this phase when wave and tide action can increase the risk of flooding for around 500 homes and businesses near the harbour.

While the heritage of Whitby is now a draw for tourists, at the time of the ship building industry, naturally, the loss of the harbour piers would significantly impact tourism and the environment.