King and Queen Dockyard

The King and Queen Dockyard was in Rotherhithe on the River Thames, London.

At least as early as 1663 there was a dry dock belonging to Sir Thomas Gould adjacent to what by 1754 became known as the King And Queen Watermen's Stairs. In the 18th Century this dock and yard were called Pitcher's Point. There were various small vessels built here for the Royal Navy by John Quallett & Joshua Sparrow. These days all that remains of the King and Queen drydock is the inlet under the footbridge. The King And Queen watermen's stairs after which it was named were on the upstream side of this. The modern King & Queen Wharf residential development partially covers the site of the former Upper Globe drydock and partially what was known as Lower King and Queen Wharf, and which was only a small part of what from around 1790 to 1840 was the King and Queen Shipyard with two drydocks and several building slips. By 1894 the King and Queen Dry Dock was filled in and converted to a wharf.

From 1770 until his death in 1818, the whole complex, including the former Pitcher's Point was run by Peter Everitt Mestaer, a wealthy ship owner and shipbuilder who had a country house at Wanstead and a town house in New Broad Street. As the King and Queen Shipyard it gained a very good reputation for high quality work building a handful of vessels for the Royal Navy, eight East Indiamen and ships for other trades including the West Indies.

After Mestaer's death, this upper part of the yard was taken over by William Elias Evans, while the lower part remained empty. As he became more successful, Evans took on the lower section as well. At one point he had at least five steamers under construction, and was also repairing other vessels. After financial troubles, Evans had to give up this upper section of the yard, but as the King and Queen name had commercial value, he retained this, so the name "migrated" downstream away from the stairs after which the yard had been named. Under new management as a repair yard, this lower section became known as Princes Dry Dock.

William Elias Evans was a pioneer of steamship building, neglected by history, probably because he was a poor businessman, with impaired hearing making him a rather withdrawn and diffident person. Between 1821 and AbOUT 1835 he built many steamships here, including PS Lightning and PS Meteor, the first Post Office Packet ships based at Holyhead, which proved for the first time that steamships could operate in the open sea all the year round. He also built PS Constitutionen in 1826, the first steamer to operate in the Norwegian fjords.

See also

• Shipbuilding in Rotherhithe

Further reading

• Shipbuilding in Rotherhithe - An historical introduction by Stuart Rankin, Bib Id 488375
• Shipbuilding in Rotherhithe - Bull Head Dock to the Pageants Part 1 by Stuart Rankin, Bib Id 594173