| AdminHistory | Incorporated in 1903, when CS Swan and Hunter Ltd (1874) of Wallsend and Wigham Richardson and Company Ltd (1860) of Neptune Yard, Walker merged. Acquisitions were made over the years (see A Ritchie, Modern British Shipbuilding: a guide to historical records, 2nd edn., 1992) until in 1966 the firm's name was changed, briefly, to Associated Shipbuilders Ltd. On 1 January 1968 the Tyne shipbuilding interests of Swans, Hawthorn Leslie, Readhead, Vickers and others were amalgamated into a new company, Swan Hunter Group Ltd, nationalised in 1977. Swan Hunter's Wallsend and the Neptune surviving sectors of British Shipbuilders were privatised in 1988, and the company thereafter undertook almost exclusively naval contracts until its closure in 1993. The firm in its various guises has continued throughout as shipbuilders and ship-repairers. Following nationalisation, the marine engine division was subsumed into what became Clark Kincaid Ltd of Willington Quay, now based on the Clyde. |