Abstract
The shipbuilding industry was an important sector of the UK economy in its golden age before the First World War but the only estimates of its value are based on an analysis made 60 years ago when information was limited or difficult to access. In contrast, data from Lloyd’s Register of Shipping and the archives of UK shipbuilders and shipowners now provides a rich source of statistics. Using cluster analysis, nine passenger and cargo ship types were identified, defined by gross registered tonnage, speed, passenger numbers and price per ton. Building on this, a bottom–up model of the UK shipbuilding industry was developed and the annual values of passenger, cargo and specialist ships were estimated for 1889 to 1914. These were lower than previous top–down estimates, but were a good match for data from the Census of Production for 1907.
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