John Payne Ltd

Origins

In around 1850, John Payne established himself as a millwright, engineer, iron founder and steam boiler maker, inland from the River Avon at Tower Hill in Bristol. In 1859, he branched out into shipbuilding, a natural expansion of his marine business, firstly completing the Jane, a small wooden steam tug. This had to be launched into Bristol Harbour after transportation by truck, and she was used by the company to tow barges with machinery from the wharf near the workshops. Her small size once enabled her to save the crew of a stricken barque in Bristol Harbour. The company built three wooden tugs at Tower Hill, likely including the diminutive 11 t Merrimac, and later built up the towing fleet over a number of years.

Expansion

Following some initial success with wooden-hulled tugs, in 1862 John Payne acquired the former Acraman Yard in Bedminster in order to build iron vessels. A number of these ships were fitted with steam engines built in his own foundry in Tower Hill. The first iron tug was the Emma of 1862, and several new construction orders followed for several iron-hulled vessels for local operators. In 1864 the company moved away from the traditional tug building business and built the first coastal collier, the Isca a sloop-rigged steamer of 65 t.

Having built in iron for some years, an experimental composite-hulled design was built in 1865, the 77-foot (23 m) Cardiff Castle, a paddle steamer tug of 62 t, later converted to a yacht in 1880 with an unusual dandy rig and wrecked on Cardiff Grounds on 15 April 1897. The same year the Kate was completed, and these were the first paddle vessels built at the Acraman's Yard by John Payne. The Kate was a double-ended design which later operated from Penarth beach.

The Harlequin of 1868 was the first tug design with twin screws, which provided superior towage control and had advanced engine arrangements for their day. The same year, John Payne completed two river steamers for Brazil, the Corruipe and Mondahu, steel twin-screw vessels of 200 t and the largest vessels yet built by the yard. These appear to have been the companies only exports. The steamer Henry Allen, completed in 1874, was even larger at 225t.