Richardson, Duck and Company was a shipbuilding company in Thornaby-on-Tees, England that traded between 1855 and 1925.[1]
History
The yard was founded as the South Stockton Iron Ship Building Co in 1852.[1] Its premises were the former yard of engine builders Fossick of Stockton and its first vessel was the iron-hulled steamship Advance.[1] In 1855 Joseph Richardson and George Nixon Duck took over the yard. They built fifty iron steamships, a paddle steamer, ten sailing ships and 29 barges in their first ten years.[1] In 1859 they built the paddle steamer Tasmanian Maid (yard no. 9)[2] which in 1863 was converted into the gunboatHMS Sandfly.
In the 1900s Richardson, Duck started building steel hulls.[1] By the end of that decade Richardson, Duck had built five hundred tramp steamers, other merchant ships and lighters.[1] It had also become licensees for the Isherwood system of longitudinal framing.[1]
Richardson, Duck's ships in 1911 included the cargo steamship Budapest (yard no. 616)[2] which was later renamed Kerwood and in 1918 was commissioned into the US Navy as Kerwood. In 1912 Richardson, Duck built 12 ships and became a limited liability company.[1]
Richardson, Duck built the cargo steamship Conistone as yard no. 686 and launched her in 1924. She was renamed Nollington Court in 1927 and sank in the Caribbean in 1937.[3]
In 1919 Richardson, Duck became a public company and in 1920 James and Walter Gould acquired a controlling interest in it.[1] In 1922 the yard suffered industrial action and a lack of orders. Richardson, Duck's final ship was Southborough (yard no. 689) in 1924.[2] In May 1925 the Gould Group went into liquidation and in 1933 the yard was demolished.[1]
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