Who Owned the Kingston Shipyards?

Kingston's main dry dock and shipyard was located at the west end of Ontario Street. Page one of its 1891-1928 Dry Dock Book (top photo). Its cornerstone was famously laid by Canada's first Prime Minister and Kingston's most famous son, The Rt. Hon. Sir John A. Macdonald, on June 19, 1890.

Initially transferred from the British to local businessmen Counter, Gildersleeve and Kilpatrick in the late 1830's, a Marine Railway was flourishing on Mississauga Point as the main shipbuilding point west of Quebec. Various local ownership schemes lasted until the land was returned to the government and the drydock added in 1890-91. Designed by Henry Perley, the stones lining the sides of the dock were three feet square by four feet long, of locally-quarried stone, likely from Belleville. Locally (and on this blog) referred to as the Kingston Shipyards, there were changes in ownership over the years of shipbuilding on the site.

• 1891 - the drydock is owned and administered by the Department of Public Works
• 1909 - Secretary-Treasurer W.J. Fair writes to Department of Public Works (above) re: Collingwood personnel associated with leasing the drydock and the intent to form the Kingston Shipbuilding Co. 
• 1910 - Collingwood Shipyards took on the shipyard and drydock as a subsidiary, named the Kingston Shipbuilding Co., also known as Collingwood Shipbuilding Co., Kingston. On August 2, the dry dock was leased by Kingston Shipbuilding for 21 years at $10,000 per year.
• August 1914-December 1916 Improvements are made to the plant and buildings of the shipyard: Locomotive crane $6014.81; Railway track in yard $2177.28; their proportion of the railway track from the Grand Trunk yard along Ontario Street $1823.25; Railway spur from Ontario Street to yard $1054.66. The city bylaw to extend the siding was published in December, 1914 and passed on January 11, 1915. The extension ran from the end of Grand Trunk passenger track at the north-east corner of Ontario and William Streets, across William and along Ontario to West Street.

• January 1917 - Pres. R.M. Wolvin writes to request transfer of lease from Kingston Shipbuilding Co. to Collingwood Shipbuilding Co. though the Collingwood name disappeared shortly thereafter. H.B. Smith was Collingwood Shipbuilding President, H.C. Welch was the Kingston Shipbuilding Co. Manager, and T.F. McMillan the Secretary.
• June 1917 - Samuel Chapleau from Department of Public Works writes to Mr Welsh, Superintendent of Kingston Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co.:
  
• 1917 As of June 1, the drydock lease was reduced to a rate of $5,000/yr., one of only two drydocks on the Great Lakes, then known as the Collingwood Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Kingston Yard as of December, 1917. On February 3, 1918 Kingston Shipbuilding assigned the lease for the drydock to Collingwood Shipbuilding. An Order-in-Council of December 1, 1921 confirmed the new rate for the years  1920-1924.
• 1920's-1942 - Referred to as Kingston Shipbuilding Co. though name changed to Canadian Shipbuilding & Engineering in 1942 (letterhead in use, 1943 and possibly as early as 1930's):
  
• 1946-1947 - Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) purchased the shipyards.in Kingston, Midland, Port Arthur and Collingwood. As early as 1944, John S. Leitch wrote a letter of recommendation for Shipyards superintendent R.W. Sutton, anticipating "going out of business shortly".
  
• 1953 - Officially known as Kingston Shipyards, Ltd.
• 1967 - CSL president T.R. McLagan ordered manager R.W. Sutton (manager of the Kingston Shipyards from February, 1953 to October, 1968) to shutter the shipyards.
• 1973 - In June, most of the shipyards' buildings were demolished. Two buildings remained, becoming the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes.

(Documents in this post from Kingston Shipyards Collection, Queen's University Archives.)