Sir William Arrol & Co.

Sir William Arrol & Co. was founded in 1872 in Glasgow, Scotland bridge and crane construction company that was known by the construction of some of the most famous bridges around the world.

William Arrol and Co of Dalmarnock Iron Works, Preston Street, Bridgeton, Glasgow

The company's founder Sir William Arrol was born in 1839 as the son of a weaver in Houston, Renfrewshire, and began at the age of nine years in a cotton factory to work. At 13 he began an apprenticeship with a blacksmith and learned in night school the basics of mechanics and hydraulics. In 1863 he entered a Glasgow bridge construction company, founded in 1868 (1872 ) but his first company, Dalmarnock Iron Works, in the eastern part of the city. In the late 1870s he founded the construction company Sir William Arrol & Co., which was to be a leading company in its sector. Arrol was knighted in 1890. On January 2, 1893 his company was converted into a public limited company. Arrol was also active as a politician of the British Liberal Party, he was elected in 1895 for his party to the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of South Ayrshire, and held this position until 1906. He spent his retirement years at his estate in Seafield, near Ayr, where he died in 1913. At the beginning of the First World War 1,500 people were employed in 1961 there were 2,150. The company Sir William Arrol & Co. in 1968 supplied container cranes at British Rail, Freightliner and was adopted a year later by the firm Clarke Chapman.

Firth of Tay Bridge

After Arrol in 1878 received the commission to build the Caledonian Railway Bridge over the River Clyde, in 1882 he was given the task in 1879 collapsed Firth of Tay Bridge rebuild. The next major task of his company, was the design and construction of the Firth of Forth Bridge which was completed in 1890. Both bridges were remarkable in their time each world's largest of its kind, the use of steel for the construction of the Firth of Forth Bridge and a newly developed by Arrol method was to rivet the carrier together.

Firth of Forth Bridge

With the Firth of Forth Bridge Arrols contractors created a still extremely well-known bridge structure. After a construction begun in 1879 according to the plans of the engineer Thomas Bouch was stopped after the also built by him Firth of Tay Bridge collapsed in Dundee on 28 December 1879 commissioned to the engineers Sir John Fowler and Benjamin Baker with the planning a more stable bridge. The result was an exceptionally solid cantilever bridge. The 2.5 km, two-lane bridge with 46 m height above the road surface flood water level in 1890 was officially opened. It consists of three each 110 meters high diamond-shaped trusses with 495 and 2 × 460 m in length with attached four viaducts. The bridge was created from about 4,500 to 5,000 workers and consists of about 54,000 tons of steel.

Other bridges

At the, created from 1886 to 1894, Tower Bridge in London Arrol was together with the other main contractors Sir John Jackson (foundations ), William George Armstrong ( hydraulics), William Webster and Herbert Henry Bartlett involved. 432 construction workers under the leadership of the civil engineer EW Crutwell started the building of approximately 70,000 tonnes of concrete and 11,000 tons of steel. More Arrol - bridges were the Nile Bridge in Egypt and the Hawkesbury Bridge in Australia.

Harland and Wolff

Sir William Arrol & Co. was also commissioned to build a gantry crane system via the Bauhellingen the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, in order to allow 1908 the construction of a series of three large passenger ships in the Olympic class, including the Titanic. As the vessels of the Olympic class, the gantry crane system was one of the largest and most powerful crane facilities of its kind worldwide and has been called " Arrol Gantry" to both a landmark in the yard as well as their designer.

Another work Arrols is still preserved shipyard crane "Titan" on the former shipyard of John Brown & Company in Clydebank.