Halifax Shipyards, 1918-1978 : an historical perspective

Abstract

This thesis will present an historical perspective on the history of Halifax Shipyards and attempt to demonstrate its social and economic importance to Halifax and the Province of Nova Scotia. Halifax Shipyards Limited was the successor of Halifax Graving Dock Company, managed by Samuel Brookfield from its completion in 1889 until its expropriation by the federal government in 1918.

Financial problems plagued the company from its formation and led to a takeover of BESCO in 1928 by a group backed by the Royal Bank of Canada. The new company was known as The Dominion Steel and Coal Company (DOSCO), and retained ownership until 1957.

In 1957 A. V. Roe Corporation Canada Limited, a subsidiary of the British based Hawker Siddeley investment group, purchased the DOSCO holdings in Nova Scotia which included the Halifax Shipyards. In 1959, A. V. Roe became Hawker Siddeley Canada Limited. The years 1958-1979 were the shipyard's "golden decades". Unfortunately, as the final decade came to an end it bore witness to the collapse of Halifax Shipyards, one of the city's "great institutions of enterprise and industry"--a collapse that the shipyard is struggling to recover from sixteen years later. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)