Fishburn's shipyard

Thomas Fishburn started his shipbuilding business in the old Jarvis Coates shipyard on the east side of the Esk estuary in Whitby c. 1748 on a site previously used for shipbuilding.^[1] It is alleged in various sources that Fishburn was an apprentice at the Coates' yard, before he struck out on his own venture.^[2] Fishburn considered himself a Master Builder [of ships], rather than as a shipwright, as the term shipwright was deemed to be a job for someone of a poor skills.^[3] However, in an advertisement from 1758, Fishburn was described as a "ship-builder".^[i] Fishburn was the first to build the dry dock at Bog Hall,^[5] later to become part of the railway sidings,^[6] though his first dry dock was built on the soft mud of the riverbed, and subsequently sank into the estuary in 1757.^[7][8] In 1784, a ropery covering 300 yards (270 m) was built between the ship yard and the dry dock.^[9]

With the land and dock acquisitions that the Fishburn family achieved, they became one of three great shipbuilding families to operate in Whitby in the 18th century (the others being the Barry and the Barrick families).^[10] The first mention of Fishburn & Brodrick building ships together is in 1795,^[ii] but by this time, the Thomas Fishburn in question was the son of the founder.^[7][12] As well as building ships, Fishburn and Brodrick owned three whaling ships between at least 1803 and 1816.^[13][14]

Perhaps the most famous of any of the ships to leave the Fishburn shipyard was the Earl of Pembroke, later bought by the Royal Navy and renamed Endeavour, then sailed to the South Seas on Cook's voyages. Cook himself, visited the shipyard in 1771 when on shore leave to "report how suitable and seaworthy" Endeavour had been for his trip. He also noted to the shipyard's owners that two more of their ships (The Marquis of Granby and the Marquis of Rockingham) had also been purchased for the next trip.^[15] Moore notes that as at least three of Fishburn's ships had been requisitioned into the Royal Navy for trips to the southern seas, his yard was

...far from being an obscure business on a provincial river, Fishburn's shipyard was becoming something of a Georgian Cape Canaveral: a launch site for expeditions to new worlds.^[16]

Between 1793 and 1815 when Britain was engaged in various military campaigns, the yard of Fishburn & Brodrick managed to launch over 100 ships, measuring in excess of 30,000 tons.^[17] Between 1800 and 1822 when Fishburn and Brodrick stopped building together, they launched 60 ships with a total measurement of 14,457 tons, with an average of 241 tons per vessel.^[18]

The partnership between the second Thomas Fishburn and Brodrick was dissolved in August 1822; the yard closed around 1830, with Fishburn dying in 1826, and Brodrick dying in 1829.^[19][7][20] The area that the shipyard occupied was filled in and converted into the railway approaches and railway station in the town by 1847.^[21][22] The first sod of the new railway was turned at Bog Hall on the site of the old Fishburn & Brodrick shipyard, and another Thomas Fishburn was one of the promoters of the new railway. The sale of the shipyard to railway company yielded him £2,400 (equivalent to £252,000 in 2023).^[23] The slipway remained extant after closure and was reused by another Whitby shipbuilder, Hobkirks, until the early 1860s.^[24] The dry dock was still in use up until 1902, having been leased by Turnbull and Son in 1843.^[7][25] Part of the former shipyard area has since been converted from railway sidings into a supermarket.^[26]

• Ship and boat building in Whitby