Clydebank Giant Cantilever Crane, former John Brown's shipyard.
Date 2012
Event ID 932044
Category Recording
Type Desk Based Assessment
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/932044
International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Nomination, Clydebank, 'Titan Crane', Clydebank Rebuilt, Aurora Avenue, Clydebank, G81 1BF
This is to nominate the following for designation as a Historic Landmark: Titan Crane, Located at Clydebank, Glasgow, UK
Lat 55degrees 53.840'N long: 04 deg. 24.524'W
Ordnance Survey NGR 4948 6975
Owner: 'Titan Clydebank', Clydebank Rebult, 1 Aurora Drive, Clydebank, G81 1BF.
Date of Construction: 1907-1907, up-rated from 150 Ton to 200-ton capacity in 18938. Last shipbuilding use 1971. Visitor attraction from 2007. New Visitor Centre 2011.
Names of key civil engineer and other professional associated with project:
Adam Humter (18969-1933 MICE MASCE), Chief Engineer Sir William Arrol and Co. Ltd and for the machinery, Messrs Stothert and Pitt Ltd, Bath. Arrol's were a world class firm after their manufacture and erection of the Forth Bridge in 1890 and Hunter, who served his apprenticeship at the bridge had been, by 1905 when the Titan crane was being designed, promoted to the firm's Acting Chief Engineer. As his career developed he became nationally one of the greatest exponents of structural steelwork engineering on a large scale, especially on bridges, cranes and workshops.
Historic Significance of the Landmark: The earliest survivor of its type - described in Engineering in 1907 as the 'largest crane of 'the hammer-head or Titan' type yet completed. A listed by Historic Scotland. Examples still survive in Scotland (Greenock, (1917), North British Diesel Engineering Works, Whiteinch, Glasgow (1919), Finnieston, Stobcross, Glasgow (1931).
Unique Features of Characteristic which set apart this proposed landmark apart from other civil engineering projects: Differs in design from the 1903/4 Benrather Maschinenfabrik AG hammerhead crane of about the same height 154ft (47m), which had a shorter horizontal jib length of 233ft (71m). The Benrather Cranes were the first modern large capacity cranes of any type in Britain'. The Titan crane did not incorporate a movable counter balance weight on the short cantilever arm, having fixed ballast tanks at its end containing 86 tons of nickel slag. This simplified the operation of the crane but required Arrol to accommodate the various stresses generated.
Leading crane-makers Stothert and Pitt made and erected the machinery, which in this application...was innovative.
Contribution which this structure or project made toward the development of the civil engineering profession and the nation or a large region therof: By contemporary publications and by example this state of the art crane and at least twenty others ...designed by and mostly erected by, Sir William Arrol and Co., became the most widely adopted genre in the world. The Titan contributed significantly to shipbuilding and world transport in helping to fit out such great ships as the Aquitania, HMS Hood, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth II.
Extract provided by Prof. Roland Paxton from International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Nomination, to the History and Heritage Committee ASCE from the Institution of Civil Engineers, 2012.
R Paxton, 2012.
