Gladstone Dry Dock, Liverpool
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1913 The Gladstone Dock extension to the Mersey Docks was opened.
Work started on the graving dock in 1910, and the unusual course was adopted of providing one quay with transit sheds, enabling it to be used both as a graving dock and an ordinary wet dock, an arrangement which proved of great value when the war broke out. As the dock was brought into use independently from the main scheme, a special entrance had to be constructed from the river to give access to it for boats of deep draught, the channel to this entrance in the river bed was dredged to a depth of 27 ft. below the old dock sill datum. This, however, was only a temporary arrangement, and when work on the rest of the scheme was begun the main north and south river wall was extended to the outer end of the tipped dam, which was built when the graving dock was being constructed, so as completely to enclose the Gladstone Dock area, and the old Rimrose river wall, which formed the original northern boundary of the docks, was removed. This extension closed the river entrance to the graving dock and put it out of commission temporarily, until re-access could be obtained to it, as arranged in the original scheme.
The graving dock is 1020ft. long, nearly 140ft. longer than the SS Olympic. The entrance caisson was built by the Motherwell Bridge Co. The contract for the pumping installation was placed with the Worthington Pump Co., and the diesel engines were being built by Carels Freres, Ghent.[1]
The development of the complete scheme was delayed during WWI but, from 1919, the work was accelerated so that the whole [[Gladstone Dock, Liverpool|Gladstone Dock] system was completed by 1927, in which year it was opened by H.M. the King.
1923 Visit to the Graving Dock
1926 - December. Liverpool's extended Gladstone Dock, according to a statement made by Mr. T. M. Newell, engineer-in-chief to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, was to be ready to open in February 1927. The dock cost about £8,000,000 was on course for construction for twenty years, but construction was held up during the war years.[2]