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GB Hunter in later life, photo copyright of T&W Museums Sir George Burton Hunter (1845–1937)Sir George Burton Hunter was born in Cousin Street, Sunderland, on 19th December 1845, the third son of Thomas Hunter (1805–1887), shipowner, and Elizabeth, the daughter of William Rowntree, master mariner. It is recorded that ‘from infancy he gave evidence of an energetic if somewhat serious and taciturn disposition’. When he was eight years old his father took the whole family on a voyage round the world on the ship he owned, the 454 ton William and Jane, which also carried emigrants. Hunter's education was thus confined to the period between his return and the time when, at the age of thirteen, he became a pupil under Thomas Meek, engineer to the River Wear commissioners. He supplemented his knowledge with a study of Cassell's Popular Educator and in later life also learned French and shorthand. After two years he commenced an apprenticeship in the Sunderland shipyard belonging to his cousin, William Pile. He quickly made his mark, and he took charge of the drawing office and became acting manager before he moved to Clydeside in 1869 to spend two years at the Govan yard of R Napier & Sons as an assistant to the manager, Sir William Pearce. He then returned to his old employer in Sunderland, as manager, until the business failed on Pile's death in 1873. This was particularly unfortunate timing, as on 15th April 1873 Hunter married Annie Hudson, the daughter of Charles Hudson of Whitby and niece of the ‘railway king’, George Hudson; they had four daughters and two sons. A partnership that Hunter formed in 1874 with S P Austin, another Sunderland shipbuilder, eventually restored his fortunes, however. It was in the course of this partnership that Hunter devised a system of cellular double-bottom construction, for water ballast, first used on the screw-steamer Fenton in 1876. At the end of 1879 the partnership was dissolved and Hunter moved to Tyneside, where he became managing partner in a new enterprise, C S Swan and Hunter, with a shipyard at Wallsend. Wallsend was at that time a pit village and the shipyard occupied no more than a 7 acre site but, under Hunter's guidance and in boom conditions, the business expanded steadily. The yard concentrated initially on the production of iron cargo steamers, of which nearly forty had been built by 1883. In that year more land was acquired and the East Yard laid out. Soon afterwards ships were being built in steel and fitted with triple-expansion engines. Oil tankers and refrigerated cargo ships quickly followed. In 1893 the firm became the leading Tyneside yard, in terms of tonnage constructed, for the first time. In 1895 the business was incorporated as a private limited liability company, C S Swan and Hunter Ltd, with Hunter as chairman. Two years later it took over the neighbouring yard of Schlesinger, Davis & Co, which was thereafter used for the construction of floating docks. Two roofed-in building berths were constructed in the East Yard, followed by a further two capable of building vessels up to 750 feet. The company built its first passenger liner for Cunard, the Ultonia, in 1898 and several more were built before the Mauretania was laid down. The scale of that contract led to amalgamation with another Tyneside shipbuilder and engineer, Wigham Richardson & Co Ltd, to form Swan, Hunter, and Wigham Richardson Ltd in 1903. By now the enterprise occupied 78 acres, with 1400 yards of river frontage. About this time the new company also took control of the Tyne Pontoons and Dry Docks Company Ltd and the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Company Ltd. In 1912 the Clyde shipbuilders Barclay, Curle & Co Ltd were acquired and a new yard opened at Southwick, Sunderland. After the First World War the company extended its interests in, or took control of, a number of other concerns throughout the British Isles, including the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company Ltd and the North British Diesel Engine Works Ltd. Hunter was involved in the wider affairs of the shipbuilding industry. He was one of the founders, in 1884, of the North East Coast Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders. He served from 1900 to 1924 on the council of the Institution of Naval Architects and he was their representative on the technical committee of Lloyd's Register of Shipping and the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee. He was also a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. The development of Wallsend was so bound up with the fortunes of the shipyard that Hunter's role has been likened to that of Lord Leverhulme towards Port Sunlight. Certainly it was the object of much of his philanthropy, and he set up and subsidized the Wallsend Café to provide the means of non-alcoholic refreshment and self-improvement to those who wished to take advantage of it. Much involved in local government, after Wallsend was created a borough in 1901 Hunter became its second mayor and he was made a freeman of the borough in 1911. He also served as a JP. In 1906 Durham University awarded him an honorary DSc, in recognition of his support of Armstrong College, and in 1918 he was knighted for his wartime services. Invariably dressed in a blue reefer suit, often wearing a yachting cap, Hunter presented a tall, robust figure with a full beard and deep-set grey eyes. He was the archetypal self-made man, with a passion for his work which still left room for numerous other enthusiasms. A lifelong Anglican of evangelical tendency, he was also a rigid teetotaller and non-smoker. It is little wonder that his obituary commented that ‘those who accompanied him on the trial trips of ships he built will remember the air of grave detachment with which he would survey his guests enjoying themselves in the smoking room after dinner’ (The Times). He served as president of the National Temperance Federation and favoured prohibition. Similarly, he championed the cause of spelling reform as chairman of the Simplified Spelling Society. He was naturally drawn to the public platform and was a frequent correspondent to newspapers. Never short of an opinion and never shy in volunteering one, it is perhaps surprising that he did not pursue a political career. But his only attempt, when he stood as a Liberal candidate for Sunderland in 1900, ended in a narrow defeat. In 1928, following his wife's death, he gave up the chairmanship of Swan Hunter. However, he remained a director and enjoyed life with scarcely diminished energy, crossing the Atlantic for the last time at the age of eighty-six. He died at his home, The Willows, Clayton Road, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne, on 21st January 1937 at the age of ninety-one and was survived by three daughters and two sons. He was buried on 25th January in St Andrew's cemetery, Newcastle upon Tyne, alongside his wife and a daughter who had predeceased him. Copyright Lionel Alexander Ritchie |
