Shipbuilding

Wooden shipbuilding in Scotland has a tradition dating back to the 1600s, with shipyards in the Moray firth, Dundee, Leith, Aberdeen and Greenock, Kingston and Garmouth (Speyside), and smaller yards in various places across the country. However it was the impact of steamships on the River Clyde that made Scotland a shipbuilding powerhouse. Henry Bell's Comet became Europe's first commercial seagoing steamship in 1812, and laid the foundations for steam navigation and shipbuilding on the Clyde.