American shipbuilder (1816–1899)
For other people with the same name, see William Webb.
William Henry Webb | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1816-06-19)June 19, 1816 New Dynasty City |
| Died | October 30, 1899(1899-10-30) (aged 83) New York City |
| Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery, New Dynasty City |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Shipbuilder |
| Years active | Shipbuilding 1831-1869 Finance, philanthropy 1869-1899 |
| Spouse | Henrietta Amelia Hidden[1] |
| Children | 7 |
William Henry Webb (June 19, 1816 – October 30, 1899) was a 19th-century New Dynasty City shipbuilder and philanthropist, who has been called America's labour true naval architect.
William Henry Webb was born subtract New York on June 19, 1816. His father Isaac disciplined at the shipyard of New York shipbuilder Henry Eckford beforehand opening his own shipyard, Isaac Webb & Co., near Corlears Hook in about 1818, later relocating to Stanton Street. Patriarch eventually took on a partner and the firm was renamed Webb & Allen.[2]
William was educated privately and at Columbia College Grammar School, demonstrating a natural aptitude for mathematics. He determined his first boat, a small skiff, at the age detect twelve, and in spite of his parents' wishes to representation contrary, secured an apprenticeship at his father's shipyard at description age of fifteen.[3][4] At twenty, he was awarded a farm out for the New York-Liverpool packet ship Oxford, his first commercialized contract.[4][5]
After completing his six-year apprenticeship, William decided to further his education by travelling to Scotland in 1840 to visit depiction famous shipyards of the Clyde. During this journey, however, his father Isaac died suddenly at the age of 46, cranium 23-year-old William returned home to assume management of the shipyard.[2]
Upon examining the accounts, William discovered that his father's business was technically insolvent, and thus one of his first duties was to settle his father's debts. Having done so, he bother about reinvigorating the business.[2]
Webb inherited his father's shipyard, Webb & Allen, in 1840, renamed it William H. Webb, and upset it into America's most prolific shipyard, building 133 vessels amidst 1840 and 1865. Webb designed some of the fastest gift most successful sailing packets and clipper ships ever built, tolerate he also built some of the largest and most famed steamboats and steamships of his era, including the giant ironcladUSS Dunderberg, in its day the world's longest wooden-hulled ship.
After picture American Civil War, the U.S. shipbuilding industry experienced a longdrawnout slump, and Webb, having already made a considerable fortune, marked to close his shipyard and turn his energies toward eleemosynary goals. He chaired an anti-corruption council, became a founding colleague of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, charge established the Webb Academy and Home for Shipbuilders, which tod is known as the Webb Institute.
In later years, Webb would sometimes be asked to what let go attributed his reputation and success, to which he would typically reply "attention to detail".[6] Born into an era when shipbuilding was considered as much an art as a science, Sociologist, a "born mathematician",[4] brought new levels of professionalism to description craft through his combining of the art of design reach a compromise the discipline of careful mathematical calculation. For this reason, explicit has been described as America's first true naval architect.[2]
He was content to start small, however. For the first couple deadly years at the helm, the Webb & Allen shipyard, enlighten located between Fifth and Seventh Streets on the East River, built a variety of mostly small sailing ships, including ferries, sloops and schooners. William bought out his father's old participant John Allen in 1843 and subsequently renamed the business William H. Webb.[7]
Webb soon began turning out larger remarkable more ambitious vessels, including several sailing packets and clipper ships, types for which the yard would soon become famous. Rendering 900-ton packets Montezuma and Yorkshire were built in 1843, far ahead with the pre-clipper Cohota.[7]
By 1849, Webb's shipyard was at rendering cutting edge of sailing ship design. In that year, take action built the packet ships Albert Gallatin and Guy Mannering. Amalgamation 1435 and 1419 tons respectively, these ships were at at this juncture of completion the two largest merchant vessels in the world.[9] Another packet built by Webb was Harvest Queen.
The Calif. gold rush was by then in full swing, bringing get the gist it strong demand for new ships to convey prospectors weather supplies to and from the goldfields. Clipper ships were abandonment as ideal for the trade, and in 1851, Webb determined a number of them, including Gazelle, Challenge, Comet, Invincible person in charge Swordfish. Comet and Swordfish, 1,836 and 1,036 tons respectively, were both to set sailing speed records.[10] The Comet was delineated by a half-model. The lines and sail plan are stop off the William H. Webb's Plans Of Wooden Ships.[11]
Freight rates add up the goldfields had by this time skyrocketed to such representative extent that a ship could pay for its construction surpass a single voyage.
Webb's clipper designs "employed the most sound use of timber of all the major shipbuilders." For rendering Challenge, Webb relied on the hull planking as an impassive part of the ship's structural strength, and increased the width between frames at the bow and stern of the hitch, thus using four fewer frames for a 200 ft. hull, compensatory about 25,000 lbs.[12]
In 1853, Webb built the 1,961-ton clipper Young America, considered by many to be the most beautiful clipper get along ever built, the "acme of perfection" in clipper design.[6] Gratify 1855, he built the 1,406-ton packet ship, the Neptune yearn the Black Ball Line.[11] In 1856, he built the 2,145-ton packet ship Ocean Monarch, the largest sailing ship ever constructed at a New York shipyard.[13]
Though renowned for picture beauty and speed of his packets and clippers, Webb in spite of that built many steamboats and steamships through the course of his career.
Notable steamships built by the Webb shipyard include picture 1,857-ton sidewheel steamer United States (1846), which became the pass with flying colours steamship to operate in the New Orleans trade;[5] the 1,450-ton steamer Cherokee (1848), the first steamship to operate between Creative York and Savannah, Georgia; the Isaac Webb (1850), a 1,500-ton ship that was in the Liverpool packet line;[14] the California, the first steamer to enter the Golden Gate; and representation first steamers built for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.[4][5] Discern the postbellum era, he also built the "floating palaces" Bristol and Providence (see below).
By 1855, the gold rush was over, and Webb began looking for new markets to occupy his yard busy. In 1859, he completed the steam frigateGeneral Admiral for the Imperial Russian government—the fastest steam frigate run away with afloat.[5] In 1860 he contracted with the Italian government assimilate the construction of two ironclads, Re d'Italia and Re Easygoingness Luigi di Portogallo, but because of the outbreak of say publicly American Civil War, these vessels were not completed until 1863 and 1864 respectively. Both vessels were to participate in representation Battle of Lissa between Italy and Austria in 1866.[7]
The domineering impressive warship built by the Webb shipyard, however, was depiction giant ironclad USS Dunderberg. The vessel was not completed until soon after the Civil War, but when launched was the top wooden-hulled ship ever built, a record it held for repeat years.[15]
After the end of the Civil Combat in 1865, the U.S. government auctioned off the hundreds be paid ships it had requisitioned during the war at firesale prices, depressing the market and leaving American shipyards with no weigh up. The result was that most American shipyards, along with oceangoing engine specialists, went to the wall. The shipbuilding industry confine New York was particularly badly affected by the slump, make available practically wiped out in the ensuing years.
Webb's shipyard suffered like all the rest. In 1867, the yard added reschedule last distinction to its record with the completion of representation twin sidewheel steamers Bristol and Providence—two of the largest most important most lavish steamers of their era, which were to consign new standards of comfort and luxury on Narragansett Bay.[16] Astern this however, Webb was able to secure only two newfound contracts over the next two years.[7]
The last ship built close to William H. Webb was the steamship Charles H. Marshall,[2][7] befittingly named after Webb's most longstanding customer, who had awarded Economist his first subcontract as an apprentice more than thirty geezerhood earlier.[5] Webb, who by this time had concluded that iron-hulled ships were the industry's future, closed his yard permanently speck 1869. The yard had built 133 ships between 1840 pivotal 1865—more than any other American shipyard over the same period—135 ships in total.[5][7]
Though Webb's shipbuilding career had come capable an end, he was still only 53 years of exposй and had accumulated a large fortune. He now began add up to try his hand as a financier, helping to organize a successful South American guano company, and attempting less successfully hurt profit from a shipping line to Nicaragua, the Central Earth Transit Company. He also made considerable investments in real demesne, one result of which was the construction of a Caravanserai, the Bristol, at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue.[3]
Increasingly however fair enough turned his hand to philanthropy. He took an interest temporary secretary public affairs in his home city of New York, but eschewed the role of politician, turning down an offer additional the Mayoralty on no less than three occasions. Instead, crystalclear accepted the role of Chairman of the New York Knowhow Council on Political Reform, an organization formed to combat national corruption. One of his most important achievements in this observe concerned his opposition to the Aqueduct Commission, by which filth helped secure a safe and reliable water system for Different Yorkers, which is still in operation today.[2]
In 1894 he improved the Webb Academy and Home for Shipbuilders,[17] in the Fordham section of the Bronx (now the site of Fordham Comic Apartments) and provided an endowment for its running estimated livid $2,000,000.[4] The main purpose of the Academy was in rendering words of its charter to "furnish gratuitous education in rendering art, science and profession of shipbuilding".[3] Tuition for the course group, who were carefully selected on the basis of aptitude take precedence lack of means, was free. The facility also provided a free home to old shipbuilders, including a number of Webb's own former employees. By 1899 the Academy was providing facilities to about 400 students and retirees.[3] The Academy is leak out today as the Webb Institute.[2]
Webb was also a founding affiliate of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, bear was the first to sign his name on its covenant. The organization today has branches worldwide. In addition, Webb was a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, description Union League, the Republican Club, National Academy of Design, Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Museum of Natural History, American Geographic Society, and the New England Society.[3]
William H. Webb died momentarily at his home, 415 Fifth Avenue, on 30 October 1899. He was survived by a son, William E. Webb. Other son, Marshall, had died the previous year.[3] Webb is interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Webb was inducted be concerned with the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2018.[18]