Hercules Linton

Hercules Linton (1836-1900) - Surveyor, Designer, Ship Builder and Antiquarian. Best known as the designer of the Cutty Sark and partner in the yard of Scott & Linton which built her.

Hercules Linton was born on 1st January 1836 in Inverbervie , Kincardineshire, the son of Alexander Linton (b1806), a carpenter, and his wife Jane. Hercules was the first child born to Alexander and Jane Linton and they subsequently had five more children, all girls and sisters to Hercules.

On his nineteenth birthday in 1855 Hercules Linton was apprenticed to Alexander Hall & Sons who at the time, were the leading shipbuilders in Aberdeen and whose schooner Scottish Maid (1839) with its sharp bow and entry helped coin the term Aberdeen Bow . Linton progressed through his apprenticeship and eventually rose to a senior position at Alexander Hall & Sons.

Eventually he left Alexander Hall & Sons to become a Lloyds Inspector based at the Lloyds offices in Liverpool and subsequently moved to the Liverpool Underwriters Registry where from early in 1862 he was assisting John Jordan who was the Chief Surveyor. It is thought that he left the Liverpool Underwriters Association in May 1864 but still associated on a free-lance basis.

On 12th April 1865 Hercules Linton married Marjory Anderson, a farmers daughter, in Kinghornie and in June 1866 their first child, a daughter, was born in Newcastle.

Scott and Linton – Shipbuilders

In May 1868 at the age of 32, Linton entered into a partnership with William Dundas Scott who was 23 years of age, to form the firm of Scott & Linton, shipbuilders.

Approximately £600 of the £1200 capital to set up the business was provided by Scott’s father. The rest was a borrowing against Linton’s life insurance policy and some cash. As Scott sourced more than 50% of the capital, this may explain why the business was called Scott & Linton rather than Linton & Scott! Hercules Linton managed the design and shipbuilding and William Scott managed the counting house and engineering.

John Rennie (1842 - 1918) was appointed Chief Draughtsman at the new firm.

In May 1868 Scott & Linton rented part of the Woodyard . The yard was previously occupied by Denny’s until they moved across the river upon expiry of their lease. However the lack of business experience in the two partners showed as early as August. Correspondence between Scott and his father shows that cash flow problems emerged during the building of their first order, the small iron steamship ‘Camel’, for which there appeared to be no contracted stage payments during the build. Work had to be completed in October and the completed vessel delivered to J. Bibby & Co in Newcastle at which point Scott & Linton would then receive the full purchase price of £980.

Scott & Linton Order Book

The total order book for the Scott & Linton yard comprised:-

• Camel – Steamship for J. Bibby & Co.
• Snowdon – Twin engined paddle steamer for the Liverpool, Rhyl & Vale of Clwyd Steam packet Co. Gross tonnage 160.4, registered tonnage 94.12. Launched on 16 April 1869 by one of Hercules Linton’s sisters.
• Jura – Propeller driven steamer 86 ft long, 17.5 ft wide and 8.5 ft draft.
• Tug – Twin screw tug for A. Leslie
• Gio – Paddle Steamer for Donna Maria
• Linn Fern – Composite three masted schooner
• Invershie – Iron Sailing Ship, owners I. & K. Grant
• Cutty Sark – Composite clipper for John ‘Jock’ Willis

Cutty Sark and John Willis

The agreement to build the Cutty Sark was signed by John 'Jock' Willis (also known as 'White Hat' Willis) on 1st February 1869 with a contacted completion date six months later on 30th July, 1869. Willis had been an experienced shipmaster in his father’s business and now was also an experienced ship owner on his own account. How Willis found and selected Scott & Linton to design and build a state of the art extreme clipper is not known. Linton certainly had many contacts made through his career as a respected surveyor and probably also did design work as surveyors often did at that time. Linton's experience gained at Alexander Hall & Sons probably contributed to his design skills.

On the surface it seems Willis must have been taking a risk but he used all his business experience to negotiate an agreement which provided a high degree of protection. Willis with his practical experience also approved the drawings and specifications. The agreement provided for a payment of a deposit to Scott & Linton upon signature followed by seven stage payments as the construction progressed. However there were also penalty clauses.

Cutty Sark was contacted for at a price of £17 per ton but if the tonnage exceeded 950 tons there would be no extra payment. The price of £17 per ton was extremely competitive and given the total lack of experience in building a composite clipper ship of anything close to the size and complexity of Cutty Sark makes one wonder how the price was calculated to win the order and yet still make a profit. The completed vessel was to be delivered by 30 July 1869 with a penalty of £5 per day to be paid by Scott & Linton for every day of delay unless the delays were due to changes in specification or labour strikes. If Scott and Linton were unable to complete then Willis had the right to enter the yard and finish the work paying for materials out of the withheld stage payments.

Cutty Sark was to be built to Lloyds A1 classification and in addition to the regular visits from the Lloyds surveyors, Willis had one of his experienced skippers Captain George Moodie superintend the construction prior to taking command of Cutty Sark upon completion. Captain Moodie was said to be very particular regarding the quality of the materials used in the construction and only accepted the best quality materials and workmanship which all added to the cost (maybe this contibuted to why the Cutty Sark is still in existence today).

During the construction the Lloyds surveyors wanted additional strengthening around the bilges and other areas. Agreement was eventually reached with Lloyds but not before causing a delay which in turn delayed the receipt of stage payments, affected cash flow and reduced the profit by causing Scott & Linton to absorb the extra cost of labour and materials to comply with the negotiated additions.

The problems with the surveyors were made worse by the fact that Linton’s father Alexander Linton was one of the Lloyds surveyors involved. He was normally based in Belfast but in May 1896 he was temporarily seconded to Glasgow due to the resident Lloyds surveyor involvement in a shipyard accident.

Financial Problems

Cash flow problems were such that all work in the Scott & Linton yard was suspended in the first week of September. Rather than apply for the Company to be liquidated, the creditors met and decided to complete some or all of the outstanding contracts and a financial agreement was reached with William Denny & Bros to complete the ships. In the case of the Cutty Sark, daily penalties were in force and netted against the remaining stage payments and Willis had the option to enter the yard and complete. So presumably a new agreement was reached between Scott & Linton’s creditors and Willis to allow completion and some payment otherwise it would have been pointless for the creditors to continue.

Cutty Sark was eventually launched on 22nd November 1869, nearly five months late, by Captain Moodie’s wife. Cutty Sark was then moved to Denny’s yard at Leven to have her masts installed and on the 20th December towed to Greenock to have a specialist firm install her running rigging.

The creditors discovered that the decision to continue with the work was a mistake as the monies received upon completion of the ships did not even cover the extra costs incurred by the creditors in competing the ships. On the 12th April 1870 an auction of all Scott and Linton’s remaining assets was held and in the nature of these unfortunate events low prices were achieved for machinery etc which was all virtually new.

In the midst of the collapse of his business, Linton’s wife gave birth to a baby son in October 1899 but soon after Linton was forced to hand over his house to the creditors which must have been a family disaster during a time which should have been full of personal happiness. Linton was bankrupt.

After everything was finished and final costs taken into account, the creditors were owed even more money than the amount outstanding when they made the ill-advised decision to complete the three ships.

Scott & Linton existed for only 4 months under the direction of Hercules Linton and William Scott after which time the creditors took over.

Hercules Linton in later years

After the troubles at Scott & Linton, Hercules Linton joined Gourlay Brothers as assistant manager at their yard in Camperdown, Dundee.

In December, 1869 Linton took a job as head of the modelling and design department at Leckie, Wood and Munro who were shipbuilders and engineers. At the beginning of April 1870 he resigned due to his involvement with a new firm of shipbuilders Morton, Wyld & Co. who started operations at the yard previously occupied by Scott & Linton. Unfortunately in November 1870 they also went bankrupt.

Linton was appointed a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in November 1876.

Linton went south to Woolston in 1880 and eventually left to go to Montrose where his tenth and last child, a daughter was borne in December 1884.

Linton's wife Marjory died in January 1885 which affected him deeply.

In 1895 he was living in Inverbervie and in November of that year was elected to the Town Council.

Hercules Linton was aged 64 when he passed away on 15th May 1900 due to heart trouble. He had a varied life but achieved lasting fame as designer of the Cutty Sark.

Sources

• The Cutty Sark, Her Designer and Builder, HERCULES LINTON, 1836-1900. Author Robert E. Brettle. Published in 1969 by W. Heffer & Sons, Cambridge, England.

Other Clipper Ships