- Media metadata | Métadonnées multimédias
John Laird
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has biography | a une biographie
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British shipbuilder and Member of Parliament for Birkenhead (1861-1874).
The Laird family had a number of links to slavery and colonialism, as well as to the Confederate States of America.
John Laird's father, William Laird (1780-1841), was a Glaswegian merchant and ropemaker who developed the Birkenhead Iron Works opposite Liverpool in the 1820s for ship construction. Direct links between Laird and slave-ownership / slave-trading have not been fully traced, but Glasgow and Liverpool were major British slave-trading ports and it is possible Laird would have supplied slave ships with ropes.
John Laird's brother, Macgregor Laird (1808-1861), was a merchant involved in early efforts to open up colonial trade on the River Niger in West Africa. Macgregor financed Richard Lander (1804-1834; see also separate database entry) to undertake an expedition to the region in 1832.
During the American Civil War, John Laird Sons & Company built four ships for the Confederate States Navy, which was fighting to preserve the institution of slavery in the United States, in violation of Britain's official policy of neutrality during the war. Two Laird-built ships, CSS Alabama and CSS Lark, were successfully delivered to the Confederacy. The other two ships, El Tousson and El Monassir (renamed HMS Wivern), were seized by the British government in 1863. The US government later brought legal action against the UK for damages caused by these ships, known as the Alabama Claims.
John Laird Sons & Company (today operating under the name Cammell Laird) built a number of ships that saw service in the British Empire, such as HMS Birkenhead (1845), HMS Orontes (1862) and HMS Euphrates (1866).
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was born | est né
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14 June 1805
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died in | est mort par
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29 October 1874
Statue of John Laird
Lander, Richard