Shipbuilding - 1940's British Council Film Collection - CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage
From laying the keel through to riveting steel plates, teams of men work together to build and launch a steel ship.
Trivia
The Steel Goes to Sea shipyard is the Burntisland Shipbuilding Company's in Fife. The gentleman checking his watch before the ship's launch was Wilfrid Ayre, managing director of the company.
The ship being built in the film is thought to be either the MV Dalhousie or the SS Ger-y-Bryn. Both ships were sunk by German vessels by April 1943.
Steel Goes to Sea states that the thousands of steel plates coming into the shipyard are tested by Lloyd's before leaving the steelworks. Lloyd's of London, a company specializing in maritime insurance at the time of production, is the topic of another film in this collection - A.1. at Lloyd's.
The British Council acknowledged that in the case of this film they had to "soft-pedal the war effort", as they were debarred from making films about the war by the Ministry of Information at the time of production.
This film has been made available by the British Council Film Collection for non-commercial research and educational purposes . . The British Council Film Collection consists of 120 short documentaries made by the British Council during the 1940s and designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked, and played.
View, download, and play with the Collection at https://film.britishcouncil.org/resources/film-archive/steel-goes-to-sea - You'll see a link to its Creative Commons license on that page confirming it can be used in your exhibition.
CharlieDeanArchives - Archive footage from the 20th century, making history come alive!