1 IF anyone deserves the title Father of Clyde Shipbuilding, it is engineer and innovator Robert Napier. Although not born in the city – he was from Dumbarton – he is nevertheless inextricably linked with the city and its shipbuilding history. Napier was born on June 21, 1791, into a family of blacksmiths and ironworkers, although his father James wanted his son to become a minister.

Glasgow Times: The Clyde

2 Already fascinated by machines and art, Napier had different plans and joined his father’s firm as an apprentice before studying civil and mechanical engineering at the works of the ‘Lighthouse Stevensons’ He started his own smithy in Glasgow in 1815 aged 24, and by 1821, he had his own engineering works at Camlachie Foundry where he made engines for mills and ships and popes for the Glasgow water supply.

3 Napier’s big breakthrough came when he designed and built an engine for the paddle steamer Leven. It is now preserved at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Dumbarton. In 1838 he won the Admiralty contract to provide engines for the Royal Navy, and a year later he set up the British and North American Steam-Packet Company with Samuel Cunard. The company would build the famous Queens at Clydebank.

READ MORE: The Glasgow Green spot where criminals were hanged

4 In 1841 Napier established his own shipbuilding yard at Govan to build iron ships. It was soon turning out capital ships for the Royal Navy and from 1848, after he acquired the Parkhead Forge, Napier could look to build even bigger ships – the RMS Persia, built for the Cunard company, was the biggest ship in the world when it was a launched in 1855.

5 Napier died in 1876 just two days after his 85th birthday. Around 1400 workers from his firm accompanied the funeral cortege. The only remaining Robert Napier-built ship still afloat is the Buffel, restored by the maritime museum in Rotterdam.