Engine and Shipbuilding Yard (Victoria Works)

Engine and Shipbuilding Yard. Presumably this is the engineering firm of Clarke Chapman, who started at South Shore in the 1860s under William Clarke, an engineer who had worked for Armstrong at Elswick. New premises were taken on St James' Road in 1874 (HER 4360) and Captain William Chapman joined the firm, followed by C.A. Parsons three years later {2}. The works concentrated on making winches, later boilers and electricity generating plants. Clarke Chapman's later claimed to be the biggest assembly works in Europe. In 1970 Clarke Chapm,an Ltd merged with John Thomson of Wolverhampton {3}.