 | Decline | The crane at the former site of John Brown's shipyard in Clydebank |
Many people have tried to explain why Scotland's shipbuilding industry declined so quickly after World War Two. This is an extract from a BBC radio programme which points out that the decline of shipbuilding in Scotland began 100 years ago. Colin Bell, who is a journalist, studied the events of the time, spoke to the characters involved in shipbuilding and expressed this valuable opinion in the programme 'Scotland's Century'. 'Scotland's Century' radio programme broadcast on BBC Scotland 21/03/99 The more you hear about Scotland's industrial decline the more you may wonder why we regret it and why it seems to have taken us by such surprise. Hard, dangerous, ill paid, wedded to out-moded technology by bosses who would not invest, the writing was on the wall from the beginning of the century. Ship building, the ultimate totem of Scotland's industrial arrogance in which the Clyde had enjoyed almost a monopoly position in the third quarter of the 19th Century, was visibly on the slide. Visible, that is, everywhere but on the Clyde. Between 1906 and 1908, the Clyde's output slumped to 50% of its tonnage in 1905. Its death has been protracted but the grim fact is that all manufacturing has dwindled throughout the century by more than a third in terms of employment. |  | |
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