Today’s picture is a river scene near the English city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We see the Hawthorn Leslie Engineers building and an unknown tug boat on the River Tyne. It’s unclear to me if the tug boat was helping the ship the photographer on, or just passing by.
Vintage photo of the Hawthorn Leslie Engineers building in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England from 1965
Hawthorn Leslie Engineers has an interesting history as a company. It was formed in 1886 from two other companies, locomotive builder R. and W. Hawthorn, and shipbuilders A. Leslie and Company. The locomotive part of the company was sold to Robert Stephenson and Company in 1937 and Hawtorn Leslie Engineers entered fully into shipbuilding.
The main shipyard of Hawthorn Leslie Engineers was at Hebburn on the River Tyne, so it is possible that this photo is of that same building. If so, the famous destroyer HMS Kelly was built here and launched on October 25th, 1938. This building would have also been closed in 1982. The company still exists, apparently they are now a mobile phone air time reseller.
Does anyone know which tug boat this is? It’d be interesting to see what company it belonged too.
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