Draft:Thomas Cummings Gibson

Thomas Cummings Gibson (1 April 1800 – 22 December 1870) was a British coal owner, merchant, shipowner and shipbuilder. He worked in the coal and coastal shipping trades before buying the old shipyard at Ramsey, Isle of Man, in 1854. The Ramsey yard was expanded with harbour works, a patent slip, workers' housing, chemical works and oil-refining plant.^[1]

The yard built the iron full-rigged ship Euterpe, launched in 1863 and later renamed Star of India. She is preserved at the Maritime Museum of San Diego and is listed as a United States National Historic Landmark.^[2][3]

Gibson was also involved in early attempts to carry petroleum in bulk by sea. In 1862 he filed two British patent applications for ships and apparatus intended to carry and store petroleum and other inflammable fluids, the second jointly with Frederick Daniel Delf of Liverpool.^[4] In 1863 the Ramsey works received crude Pennsylvanian oil by tank vessel for refining and sale through Liverpool.^[5]

Early life and coal-trading career

Gibson was born at Gateshead, County Durham, on 1 April 1800, the son of John Gibson and Mary Cummings. He was christened at Gateshead on 20 July 1800.^[6] On 21 September 1826 he married Jane Gibson of Newcastle upon Tyne. Their daughter Susanna was born on 3 July 1827, and Jane Gibson died on 18 December 1835.^[7]

During the 1830s and 1840s Gibson had interests in ships trading from the north-east of England. He owned, mortgaged or held shares in several Tyne- and Hartlepool-built vessels, including Sir John Franklin, Susanna, Admiral Drake, Admiral Rodney and Admiral Benbow.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} By 1849 he was a merchant of Gracechurch Street, London, and a shareholder in the West Hartlepool Shipping Company.^[10]

Gibson was also connected with coal mining interests in County Durham. In 1841 he signed the formation deeds of the North Durham Coal Company and later acted as trustee of its property. An 1842 mortgage of £58,996 8s. 1d. secured the company's colliery interests at Sacriston, Farnacres and Trimdon. By 1847 he was described as a City of London coal owner and merchant.^[13] In 1855 he was living at Kenton Lodge near Harrow, Middlesex. In connection with the discharge of a debt of £10,962 10s., he received a £3,000 insurance policy and a one-third share in the partnership controlling Trimdon Colliery.^[14]

Ramsey Shipyard

In 1854 Gibson bought the old shipyard at North Ramsey on the Isle of Man and appointed the architect John Spencer Raby as his agent. Within eighteen months the site had a seawall, quay walls, a 350-foot patent slip and twelve workers' flats arranged as a six-house terrace on Gibson Street, now Templar Terrace. The new slip was reported as comparable with those at Whitehaven and Workington and capable of taking vessels of 600 to 800 tons for repair.^[1] Gibson and his family lived first at the end of the new terrace and later at Orry's Mount in Bride.^[1]

The yard became a major industrial site in Ramsey. It employed large numbers of men, had a workmen's hall and newsroom, and was supplied by Gibson's steamers Outram and Havelock. Chemical works operated alongside the shipbuilding business.^[15]

Ships built at Ramsey

Euterpe was launched at Ramsey in 1863 by Gibson, McDonald & Arnold for Wakefield, Nash & Company of Liverpool. She was an iron full-rigged ship, first employed in the India trade and later used to carry emigrants to New Zealand and sometimes to Australia. The Alaska Packers' Association acquired her in 1901, re-rigged her as a barque, and renamed her Star of India in 1906. She is preserved by the Maritime Museum of San Diego.^[3][2]

Other vessels associated with the yard included Ramsey, an iron oil carrier launched in August 1863; Jane, a tank-fitted vessel built for the Liverpool and Ramsey Oil Refining and Chemical Works Company; and the large ship Delaware, which was lost off the Western Isles on its second voyage. The converted schooner Emma, the iron vessel Evelyn, and two yachts built for Gibson, Eagle and Wren, were also connected with the yard.^[15]

Petroleum refining and the bulk-oil trade

Commercial petroleum production began on 27 August 1859 with the Drake Well at Titusville, Pennsylvania.^[19] In July 1862 Gibson applied for provisional protection for ships designed to carry and warehouse petroleum, palm oil and other inflammable fluids. In December 1862 he and Frederick Daniel Delf of Liverpool made a further application for apparatus for the safe carriage and storage of oil.^[4]

By 1863 Gibson was operating oil-refining and chemical works at North Ramsey. The Liverpool and Ramsey Oil Refining and Chemical Works Company, Limited, was formed that year to carry on the business on a larger scale, with Gibson as chairman. The company acquired from him the freehold land, manufactories, plant, floating tanks and the new tank-fitted barque Jane. The price was £20,000, to be paid in shares in the company.^[5]

The company's petroleum business involved buying crude oil in America, bringing it to Britain in iron tank vessels, refining it at Ramsey, and selling the refined oil and spirits in Liverpool and other markets. Crude oil was pumped from tank vessels into large floating iron tanks beside the works. The chemical side of the business included artificial manure, vitriol, ammonia and tar distillation.^[5]

The oil-carrier project was not commercially successful. Lloyd's Register Foundation identifies Ramsey as one of three iron sailing oil carriers built in 1863 under class A1 special survey, the others being Atlantic and Great Western. None of the three was used for its intended purpose. Later successful oil tankers included the steam vessel Zoroaster, which entered service in 1878, and Glückauf, launched in 1886.^[16]

Later life and death

By the mid-1860s Gibson was based at 28 Canning Street, Liverpool. A bankruptcy adjudication against him was annulled in 1866, when he was listed as a shipbuilder and merchant under "Bankruptcies Annulled" in the Edinburgh Gazette.^[20]

Gibson died at Beach House, Hammersmith, Middlesex, on 22 December 1870. Probate was granted on 18 March 1873 to his son Thomas George Gibson of Newcastle upon Tyne. His effects were sworn at under £100.^[21]

Legacy

Gibson's Ramsey yard is chiefly remembered for building Euterpe, later Star of India, and for its connection with early petroleum-carriage experiments. Gibson Street, now Templar Terrace, survives as part of the workers' housing built during the development of the yard.^[1][15]

In 2019 Gibson was included in an Isle of Man Post Office stamp issue commemorating Victorian engineers and inventors connected with the island.^[18] No photograph of Gibson was available for the issue, so the stamp used an image associated with the oil-tanker invention from the Leece Museum in Peel, partly reconstructed from written descriptions.^[22]

See also

• Star of India (ship)
• History of the oil tanker
• Ramsey, Isle of Man
• Shipbuilding
• Lloyd's Register

References

External links

• Media related to Euterpe (ship, 1863) at Wikimedia Commons
• Star of India at the Maritime Museum of San Diego
• National Historic Landmark nomination for Star of India