| Administrative History | The Aberdeen Trawlowners and Traders Engineering Company Ltd was incorporated on 23 Feb 1901, and began trading from leased premises at Albert Quay, Aberdeen Harbour, in the summer of that year. The company was still operating from Albert Quay in Sept 1971. By 1986 it had become a wholly owned subsidiary of Lyle Offshore Group.
The company was formed by a group of Aberdeen businessmen, each of whom already had established interests in fishing and related industries. Their timing was opportune, for Aberdeen Harbour was growing rapidly at this time, and the development of an engineering works was clearly a much-needed commodity, which would benefit both themselves and other traders working there. The first board of directors were John Thomson of Aberdeen University Press Ltd., Baillie Robert Henderson D.L., Chairman of the Ross Steam Trawl Co., William McIvor, retired Chief Builder at H.M. Dockyard, Calcutta, Archibald McKenzie, J.P., Merchant, and David Sherrit, Engineer and Trawl Owner, Sheddocksley, Aberdeenshire.
The chief objective set by the company in its Memorandum and Articles of Association was "to establish and carry on at any place or places within the United Kingdom, the business and undertaking of Marine and General Engineering in its several branches and departments including ship-building and repairing, boilermaking, blacksmith, carpenter and millwright work " (MS 3248/1). They also set their sights upon any ancillary trade " .. connected with or incidental to the building and repairing of steam vessels to be used for trawl fishing or other purposes, the building and fitting up of steam engines and refrigerating, electrical, or other machinery, and the manufacture and repair of ropes, chains nets and other implements and gearing required for the operations of trawl fishing or otherwise" (MS 3248/1). |