Shipyard, Robinsons
( George Sutton )
The Waterside Dockyards were founded by James Robinson around 1830 at the head of the Lee. The business was carried on by his son, George Robinson, who took over the Lower Glanmire Road Yard of Knight and Hickson in 1854 (see above) and employed 300 men there in 1855. When Joseph Wheeler later moved his operation completely to Rushbrooke, Robinson leased that property and in 1866 employed 500 men: ‘ building and overhauling timber and iron vessels from all parts of the world, as well as smaller vessels for local merchants like Suttons and Gouldings ’ (McCarthy 2019). The iron-hulled sister ships, the George Sutton and the Margaret Sutton , two of his late constructions in 1866 and 1867, were named for Captain George Sutton (b.1804) and his wife Margaret (McCarthy) Sutton. The Robinsons were at the forefront of iron shipbuilding and employed 800 men in peak years but were reduced to only repairs in 1869, later selling the Water Street property to the Cork Harbour Commissioners in 1877 (Bielenberg 1991; O’Riordan 2014; Anderson 1961).
Shipyard, Wheeler
( Joseph Wheeler )
The Wheelers followed the Knights in installing a patent slip in 1829, greatly facilitating extraction and launching of ships (see Barbadoes ). Joseph Wheeler 1812 – 91 became the Managing Director of Wheeler’s Yard and later, in the 1850s, purchased 16 acres at Rushbrooke to build a dry dock and yard to compete better with the Passage Docks . The Rushbrooke Dry Dock was first used 22 Mar 1856 (McCarthy 2019) and Joseph Wheeler soon moved all his operation to that site ( ibid ). In 1870 the Passage and Rushbrooke Docks amalgamated, to be managed by Messrs. Brown, Craig and Wheeler (O’Mahony 1986). Wheeler was a well-respected shipbuilder and was appointed Shipwright Surveyor of steamships (there was also an Engineer Surveyor) for the Port of Cork by the Board of Trade in the 1850s. The survey district extended from Youghal to Bantry Bay.
Sirius of Cork
( Joseph R Pim, Sir John Bing )
This 703t wooden paddle steamer was chartered from the St George Steam Packet Co . to complete the first Atlantic crossing by a steamer. She ‘sailed from Passage West Quay, Cork, at noon on the 4th April 1838, under the command of Captain Robert, R. N., with a total complement of 98 passengers, and laden down well below the safety line with 450 tons of coal which was stored in every available space, and in places piled high on deck. It is only a miracle that the little ship survived the first few days of that voyage when it is considered how low she must have been in the water, but she was undoubtedly a remarkable vessel and worthy of the great task she had been called on to perform’ (Anderson 1961). She ran aground off Sandy Hook, New Jersey on 22 Apr 1838 but was re-floated after several hours and arrived in the early hours of the following morning at Battery Point, New York, just a few hours ahead of the steamer Great Western (De Courcy 1985). Sadly, nine years later, on 15 Jan 1847 in dense fog, the Sirius struck a reef in Ballycotton Bay and was wrecked with the loss of twenty lives. The drive shaft remains on display at the Passage West pier and the ship’s bell is, reputedly, in a Ballycotton pub (Bourke 1994). Ballycotton Lighthouse, commissioned in 1851 and painted black for easier identification, is said to have been established because
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