Waymouth, Bernard

SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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b. unknown

d. 25 November 1890 London, England

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English naval architect, ship surveyor and designer of the clipper ship Thermopylae.

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Waymouth had initial training in shipbuilding at one of the Royal Dockyards before going on to work at a privately owned shipyard. With this all-round experience he was accepted in 1854 by Lloyd's Register of Shipping as a surveyor, and was to serve the Society well during a period of great change in ship design. In 1864 he was charged with the task of framing the Rules for the Construction of Composite Built Vessels, i.e. ships with main structural members such as keel, frames and deck beams of iron and with the hull sheathing or planking of timber. Although long superseded, these rules were of considerable consequence at the time and they were accompanied by beautiful drawings executed by Harry J.Cornish, who became Chief Ship Surveyor of Lloyd's from 1900 until 1909. In 1870 revolutionary proposals were made for iron ships that led to the adoption of a new form of rules where the scantlings or size of individual parts were related to the overall dimensions of the vessel. The symbol 100A1 was then adopted for the first time.

Waymouth was more than a theoretical naval architect: in the late 1860s he was commissioned by the shipbuilders Walter Hood to design the famous Aberdeen Clipper Thermopylae. This was one of the fastest sailing ships of the nineteenth century and, along with its Clyde-built counterpart Cutty Sark, proved the efficacy of composite construction for these specialist vessels.

Waymouth was appointed Principal Surveyor of Lloyd's in 1870 and was Secretary of the Society from 1872 until his death at work in 1890. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Tonnage and of the Enquiry into the loss of HMS Atlanta, and at the time of his death was Vice-President of the Institution of Naval Architects.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Vice-President, Institution of Naval Architects.

Further Reading

Annals of Lloyd's Register, 1934, London.

FMW