W:m Crichton & C:o Ab is a former engineering and shipbuilding company that operated in Turku, Grand Duchy of Finland from 1842 to 1913. The company also had another shipyard in Okhta, Saint Petersburg.
The company was founded as Cowie & Eriksson. At the beginning it produced steam engines, boilers and other engineering products. William Crichton became owner in 1862 and the company was named W:m Crichton & C:o The first shipbuilding slipway was constructed in 1864. The company became the biggest employer of Turku after acquiring the nearby yard Åbo Skeppswarf in 1883.
Crichton died in 1889, after which the operations were continued by investors. In 1896 the company started a new yard in Okhta, Saint Petersburg, to build ships for the local market. The operations were poorly organised, and both yards lost so much money that the entire company went bankrupt in 1913.
A new company, Ab Crichton, was established in 1914 to continue shipbuilding in Turku.
Name typography and spelling The contemporary sources use alternative spellings Wm Crichton & Co, W:m Crichton & C:o and W:m Crichton & Co. for which the corresponding Russian transliteration was В:мъ Крейтонъ и Ко. ("V:m Kreiton i Ko.").
Origins The company was started in 1842, when Swedish chief engineer and Scottish got a permit to start a foundry and engineering works in Turku.Haavikko: 1834–1907; chapter 5. pp. 11−13. The men had worked before in Stockholm for Samuel Owen who had built the first steam engines of Sweden. The location for the premises was selected an empty lot on east bank of river Aura, in address Itäinen Rantakatu 56–58. The start was funded by a loan of 15,000 silver rubles given by the senate. The operations started in 1844 and the portfolio consisted of steam engines and other machinery. In 1844 the company employed 86 people. While starting an engineering company from scratch included a high risk, there was need for steam engines in industrialising Finland. The products were steam engines and various castings and forgings, and the main customer became the Turku Old Shipyard located at the other side of the river.
First steam engines
The first known large Turku-built ship propelled by Cowie & Eriksson engine was the 1850 built Furst Menschikoff II.Knorring: Pitkä tarina lyhyesti. pp. 31–33.
Cowie & Eriksson got an order for an engine to power steam frigate Rurik, which was the largest ship built in Finland until then. In 1850 the company hired Scottish engineer William Crichton to accomplish installation and commissioning of the 300-hp engine; the project took three years in total. The ship was launched at the Turku Old Shipyard in 1851 and handed over in 1853, after which Crichton left the company.
The company suffered of lack of orders during the Crimean War. Eriksson decided to give up the business and sold his share of the company to local investor Erik Julin in 1857. After this the company operated under name D. Cowie & C:o. Julin started to seek for a partner who had experience about marine industry and business knowledge. He wrote a letter to William Crichton, who lived then in Kolpino, close to Saint Petersburg, and suggested him to buy Cowie's share of the company. Crichton took the offer and moved in Turku in 1862, after which the company was named W:m Crichton & C:o. Crichton was up to date about the latest development of naval engineering: propellers were replacing paddle wheels, wood gave way to steel and compound technology was entering in steam engines; this was enabled by the recently invented fire-tube boilers which withstood higher pressure.
Start of shipbuilding
Crichton wanted to extend the company portfolio to complete vessels. The company's first ships were not built in Turku but delivered in parts to Vähä-Äiniö yard at lake Päijänne, 230 km away from Turku. The ships were paddle steamers built by local craftsmen under supervision of specialists sent by Crichton. The first one, named Ensimmäinen ("first") was powered by a small, 12-hp engine and handed over in 1863. The subsequent Toinen ("second") was delivered in the following year and had a 25-hp engine. Both ships were intended for log tugging. Three more ships were built at Vähä-Äiniö yard: passenger ships Seura, which was a 28.8 metres long, and 33.7-metre Lahtis were both paddle steamers and handed over in 1864. In 1866 the Imperial Russian Army ordered Knyas Aleksei, a propeller equipped ship for Päijänne transportation.Knorring: Crichtonin ensimmäiset höyrylaivat. pp. 33–34.
In the meantime, a new slipway was taken into use in Turku in 1864; it could be applied both on newbuilding and repairs. A mast crane was built to lift engines and boilers into hulls and to unload steel sheets from barges. The first ships built on the new slipway were a tugboat and a couple of barges delivered to a Saint Petersburg customer in about 1865. It is likely that also few other vessels were built before 1867, when steam cruiser Suomi was built, but the original order documents have not survived.
Crichton built and installed small auxiliary steam engines on sailing ships in 1864–1873. The stern was modified to allow fitting of boiler, engine and propeller. The complete number of conversion projects remains unknown but the existing documents mention few barques and schooners with 30–40-hp engines. The concept was unsuccessful and in many cases the engines were removed after.
In 1868 Crichton delivered for Russian steam frigate Knyas Pozyarsk, a 35-feet longboat powered by a 5-hp steam engine. The boat type became one of the company's specialties; by 1905 Crichton had delivered at least 50 longboats. The hull was typically composite construction with steel ribs and wooden planking, sometimes completely made from steel. Engine output was generally under 10 hp, the most powerful one being 68 hp.Knorring: Parkassit. p. 34.
Growth The 1867 Suomi, delivered to the Finnish Customs, was Crichton's largest ship produced by then. It was 110' 6" long, 18' wide, the draught was 7' and displacement 107 tonnes. The engine output was 320 ihp.Knorring: Crichtonin suurimmat höyrylaivat. pp. 35–43. Although most of the subsequent orders consisted of relatively small vessels, such as longboats, tug boats and small sailboats, Crichton predicted that demand for larger ships would grow and he wanted to follow the trend. Despite the famine years in the 1860s, the yard sales grew steadily. In about 1870 Crichton bought more land from Itäinen Rantakatu 60–62 and built a larger, in particular wider slipway diagonally next to the river.
In March 1872 W:m Crichton & C:o received the largest order until then. The customer was Ångfartygsaktiebolaget Åbo, which ordered a passenger and freight ship for the Stockholm – Turku – Helsinki – Saint Petersburg route. The draught of the ship was 437 tonnes and the price was 200,000 marks. The delivery was scheduled for spring 1873. Although the size of the ship did not cause problems, the short lead time did – the ship, named Åbo ("Turku"), was launched at the end of May 1873 and it was ready for sea trial only at the end of September. The interior outfitting work was outsourced to the Turku Old Shipyard. Although Crichton presumably paid high penalties for the delay, the customer was satisfied with the result and the performance of the 100-hp compound engine which provided maximum cruise speed of 10 knots. In 1875 Turun Höyrylaiva Oy ordered a passenger steamer. Its size was 175×26×10 feet and net tonnage 357. Her 125-hp compound engine gave a maximum speed of 11 knots. S/S Finland was handed over in June 1876, now in due time.
In the early 1870s W:m Crichton & C:o employed 400 people. Most of the sales came from steam engines and other machinery, and just 30% of turnover came from ships. The company produced most of the needed tools, even drilling and turning machines, in its own workshops. Rapid growth of the company and the large orders required investments and various financial arrangements, creating large risks to its owners. At about the same time with making quotation for S/S Finland in 1874, the owners converted W:m Crichton & C:o a limited company in order to assure their personal property. The capital was 1,500,000 marks which was divided into 30 shares, each of 50,000 marks value; 20 shares were owned by William Crichton and 10 shares by trading house Julin. Erik Julin died already in the same year, after which the trading house was led by his son John Julin.
Due to the growing demand of larger ships Crichton became interested at the Turku Old Shipyard company located at the opposite side of river Aura. The yard had capacity for building large hulls. During the 1870s William Crichton grew his ownership in the Turku Old Shipyard and by the end of the decade he became majority shareholder and was appointed head of the company in 1878. Straight after this Crichton started investments at the old yard to enable building of large steel hulls; a workshop was built for bending steel ribs and after few years there were sheet steel forming and riveting facilities. When Crichton received two large orders with two steel ships in each in 1881, the hull production of Solovetski, Murmanski, Zurukan and Spasiteliy was subcontracted from the Old Shipyard. During that year Crichton handed over total 12 vessels, including customs boat Wiikinki, paddle steamer Krasnovodsk and six smaller vessels. Crichton became sole owner in 1883 and merged the yard to his own company. Subsequently, W:m Crichton & C:o became by far the largest company of Turku; the headcount was 936 and turnover 1,589,000 marks.
In 1879 Englishman John Eager became the company head designer. He was specialised on fast boats and designed a number of new vessel types, such as torpedo boats, gunboats and tanker ships.
When the Imperial Russian Navy started an extensive investment programme 1881, which included substantial extension of the Pacific fleet, the company received many beneficial orders. Crichton and Eager had created good contacts with the Russian authorities who decided about state purchases. The company gained good reputation in Moscow industrial fair in 1882, when W:m Crichton & C:o won a significant award, the Empire Seal. Despite the positive reputation, getting orders from the state required a complex process, including formal and informal negotiations, official and unofficial money transfers. The company had a dedicated contact person in Saint Petersburg, commercial councellor F.W. Martinson, who handled the negotiations with the Russian officials.
In 1882 Crichton received orders for four tankers. 980-tonne Lastoska was powered by a 380-hp engine and delivered to an Astrakhan based customer. 670-tonne sisters Obiyt, Armenia and Atmosfer featured 80-hp engines and had length of 152' and width of 23'. The customer was Naphta Transport Company in Baku. It is possible that the ships were built by using drawings from Swedish Motala Works, which had built the world's first tanker ship just a few years earlier.
Years 1881–1882 were the record-breaking years for Crichton; the good order level reached until 1887. During these years W:m Crichton & C:o got 113 orders. Most of the vessels were smaller, such as longboats, small motorboats and sailing boats. Only three ships were large, over 1,000 tonnes in size. Notable passenger ships built in the 1880s were the 1887 delivered 345-tonne Ebba Munck and 1888 delivered 183-tonne Heben.
The premises were extended again in 1887, when two large sheds with slipways were built on the west bank.
John Eager's era
Changes in ownership