The Finnish Connection: the thread about William Crichton and the Trinity Chain Pier
The Old Chain Pier, on the sea wall at Trinity in the north of Edinburgh, is a nice little pub for a drink or some lunch with an uninterrupted view across the Firth of Forth to Fife. It takes its name from the Trinity Chain Pier, a rather fragile-looking structure opened nearby on August 14th 1821 to serve the east coast steamers. The pier is long gone, commemorated by the pub, but surprisingly you can fine many direct links to it in Finland of all places!
“Pier of Suspension. Erected at Trinity, near Newhaven, and within Three Short Miles of Edinburgh”. 1825 print by Charles Hulmandel. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
The pier was first proposed in 1820 by George Crichton, an entrepreneurial Leith businessman. George, the son of was the son of Alexander Crichton of Woodhouselee and Newington, came from money and had spent some time in the Royal Navy, rising to be a Lieutenant. But it was on land where he made his own fortune as a shipowner. He introduced one of the first steamships to Leith, the imaginatively named Tug of 1817, which plied the Forth coast. The Port of Leith at that time was not in a good state of upkeep and access was strictly tidal. His company, the London, Leith, Edinburgh and Glasgow Shipping Company – was granted permission to build his rival pier. They in turn transferred their interest to a new company backed by Crichton – the Trinity Pier Company – who would build, own and operated it.
Coloured lithograph by Jobbins & Chiffins, 1836, showing steamers at the Chain Pier from the sea, looking south towards Trinity. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
The final design of this “pier of suspension” was by Captain Samuel Brown RN and it was situated west of the old harbour of Newhaven. Its three spans projected 627 feet out into the sea and rose ten feet above high water, it was intended that it would be accessible to steamers at all states of the tide and would not have to compete with the Newhaven fishing fleet for space.
Close up of the end of the pier from the 1825 print by Charles Hulmandel, showing a small steamer berthed. There were stairs down to water level to allow embarkation. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
At the head of the pier was a small waiting room for steamer passengers and visitors could pay 1d at a toll booth to promenade along the slender deck. The pier however never really caught on with the steamer trade; a proper deep-water harbour at Granton would open in 1837, in 1850 the North British Railway bridged the Forth from there using Thomas Bouch’s “floating railway” system, and improvements to the docks at the Port of Leith all conspired to make it surplus to requirements.
Comparison of the 1849 OS Town Plan and the 1893 25 inch map of Edinburgh showing the Chain Pier. The original toll house has been replaced by a public house in the later view, and a tramway and waiting room to serve the steamers have gone, with new bathing shelters added instead. Move the slider to compare. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Not long after the pier was opened, a public house opened opposite called The Chain Pier Inn. This was sold in 1865 so that the portion of Trinity Crescent called Albert Terrace could be extended to the east and the pub transferred across the road, replacing the former pier toll house. It is this building, much modified over the years, that forms the core of the present-day Old Chain Pier.
Around 1910, already the Chain Pier Inn is the Old Chain Pier Bar. It features an ornamental cupola from its days as the ticket office for the pier. Old postcard.
The last regular steamer from Trinity, the Helen McGregor, sailed its final season in 1850, leaving Largo on the east Fife coast at 6:45AM each morning with intermediate stops at Leven, Dysart and Kirkcaldy before arriving at the pier to meet the 9AM train from Edinburgh and make the return journey. Further departures were made to Fife at 1PM and 5PM.
“Newhaven Harbour and the Chain Pier, looking east” coloured print of an engraving by R. Brandard after W. H. Bartlett, originally published c. 1840.
After that year, when the railway service was inaugurated from Granton to Burntisland, the steamer trade reduced to little more than the occasional summer visitor and the pier found itself without a purpose. In 1859 ownership was sold to the Colonial Life Assurance Company. In order to try and make some money out of the scheme, it was promoted as a swimming station, with changing huts erected at the end and served by special early morning bathers’ trains and later cable-hauled tramcars.
Bathing huts at the end of the chain pier in the 1890s. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.Advertising bill for the Chain Pier. Edinburgh and Scottish Collection, Edinburgh City Libraries.
In March 1898 the Chain Pier Inn burned down, the result of an overheated hearth stove, and a much more permanent disaster occured later in the year the pier was largely swept away in a great storm that culminated on the night of October 18th 1898. Sections of the sea wall at Newhaven and the sea wall and railway embankment at Wardie Bay were also swept away by the power of the waves.
After the storm in 1898. The remains of the pier would be demolished. From Old Leith by Guthrie Hutton.
During the height of the storm, which lasted for thirty-six hours, the Norwegian sailing ship Kawe was wrecked ashore at Annfield, between Newhaven and Leith Docks, and the Swedish barque Bertha was wrecked between Cramond and Granton. Numerous other vessels were damaged, driven ashore or wrecked all along the Forth coast.
Evening News artist’s impression of the stranding of the
Kawe at Annfield. Printed 19th October 1898
The pub would be rebuilt – and survives to this day – but the pier was not and the remains were demolished. Within the pub you can find the older masonry walls of the original structure and other relics from the pier.
Relics from the Old Chain Pier within the pub of that name. © Self
George Crichton however prospered, even if his pier did not; he was one of the Leith Docks Commissioners, a Commissioner of Police, councillor of the Royal Landing Club, a reformist and vocal defender of Leith’s political independence from Edinburgh. He died in September 1841, leaving behind the not insubstantial fortune of £8,167 (after his creditors were settled) – about £901k in today’s money.
In 1827, George Crichton’s third son – William – was born in the family home at John’s Place in South Leith. His mother was Margaret Gifford Allan, known as Gifford. William followed in his older brothers’ footsteps and went into a career in engineering. At the age of fourteen his father died and he finished school. His brother Alexander got him a position at Scott & Company of Greenock, one of Scotland’s most prestigious shipbuilders. After that his other brother Edward got him into the Shotts Iron Company, the name in iron founding in 19th century Scotland. He completed this practical education at Robert Napier & Sons in Govan, one of the names in the country for marine engine building. When he left in 1848 he was aged just 21 but already had a most impressive CV for an aspiring young engineer.
William Crichton in later life
William now went to sea to get practical experience, and served as engineer on one of the ships of his father’s old company – the London, Leith, Edinburgh & Glasgow Shipping Co. – where he still had relations on the board of directors. After a season on the Royal Victoria he spent a winter working on his draughtsmanship and design studies, before sailing the next season with the Napier-engined Isabella Napier of the Continental Steam Navigation Co. between Leith, London and Hamburg.
Post Office Directory advert showing the “Royal Victoria”
William’s big break came unexpectedly in 1850 when a letter arrived from his fellow Scotsman, David Cowie of Cowie & Eriksson – marine engineers in Turku, the Grand Duchy of Finland (then a part of the Russian Empire). Cowie invited William to join his company on a three year contract as a supervisor. William jumped at the chance, Russia was then the place to be for an aspiring naval engineer to make his name and make money; the waning Imperial power was playing catchup with France and Britain and desperately trying to buy in the foreign expertise to expand and modernise its navy.
David Cowie
Russia held a further attaction for the aspiring William as he had connections in high places in the country. His uncle, Sir Alexander Crichton, was physician to the Czar and his cousin, Sir Archibald Crichton, was also in the service to the Czar’s family. His first job in Finland was to supervise the construction and installation of the steam engines of the new frigate Rurik then being built by Cowie & Errikson for the Russian Navy.
Launch of the “Rurik” in 1851
Crichton however soon fell ill and needed to be nursed back to health by Cowie’s wife. It was during this time he met her brother, Samuel Owen (junior), whose father Samuel Senior had helped industrialise Sweden and through whom Eriksson and Cowie had come to work together and form their partnership. In turn through Samuel Junior he met Annie Elizabeth Owen and the two would be wed in 1854. They would ultimately have twelve children together but before he could marry, William had to finish his work on the Rurik, which dd not complete until 1853. This brought his contract with Cowie & Eriksson to a close and so William took up a new opportunity in Helsinki through the Owens with Fiskars (the company known for orange-handled scissors and who may have made your garden shears).
But before he could get started, the matter of the War in Crimea got in the way and he was arrested in St. Petersburg as a possible enemy agent. Fortunately he was able to drop the name of Sir Alexander Crichton to the chief of police and instead of being sent to Moscow, he was released into his uncle’s care. Put above suspicion through his connections, he instead was given a place with Izhorskiye Zavody, a state-owned engineering works in Kolpino, St. Petersburg. Here he was able to repay Samuel Owen Junior by getting him a place there too.
Soviet postage stamp celebrating 250 years of the Izhorskiye Zavody
William set about his new job with enthusiasm and after the Crimean War was over travelled frequently back to England to appraise himself of the latest designs and technology, bringing them back to Russia to improve his own company’s engines. For his efforts in modernising their naval engineering the appreciative Russians presented him with a St Stanislaus Ribbon with a golden medal in 1860.
St. Stanislaus ribbon and silver medal, collection of the Smithsonian
In 1862, William was called back to Turku in Finland by a letter from one Erik Julin who had bought Eriksson’s shares of his old employer Cowie & Eriksson. Julin informed him that Cowie was ready to sell his share too and wanted William to consider buying it and entering into partnership with him, acting as the lead engineer. William agreed and bought Cowie’s share for 32,810 Silver Roubles. The new company became William Crichton & Co and it wasted no time in expanding from engineering into shipbuilding.
Erik Julin, Crichton’s partner in Crichton & Co.
With solid finances, Julin’s business sense and William’s engineering prowess and Imperial connections the company prospered. By the 1870s their Turku yard employed 400 and was building small screw tugs, coastal vessels and auxiliary engines. The company expanded by taking control of the Turku Old Shipyard and modernising it to allow production of steel vessels. With greater liabilities at stake it was converted into a limited organisation, with tho-thirds of the shares owned by Crichton and one third by Julin.
Letterhead of William Crichton & Co,
The company went from strength to strength and became the largest employer in Turku. To ensure Imperial orders it maintained a dedicated “commercial counsellor” in St. Petersburg, to handle the delicate negotiations and backhanders required to get state work. Crichton continued to modernise and enlarge the works until his death in 1889 aged 62. None of his many children wanted to take on the operation, so his shares were sold off to his deputy, John Eager and to Russian banks and nobility. The company continued to prosper and increasingly started to build small warships for the Russian navy. In 1898 it built twenty-six Sokol torpedo boats and took over a yard in Okhta, St. Petersburg. This investment would ultimately be their undoing as it incurred significant debts and its poor performance resulted in large penalty contract clauses.
Sokol torpedo boat of the Imperial Russian Navy
In 1906, tensions between Moscow and the Finnish Grand Duchy saw the Russian Navy cancel all contracts with Finnish yards. This hit Crichtons hard and they incurred further losses from which they never recovered. By 1913 they declared bankruptcy with enormous debts. But that was not the end for the Leith name of Crichton in Finnish shipbuilding – two of the company’s biggest creditors (and shareholders) were the Dahlström brothers, and they restarted the yard in Turku under the name Aktiebolaget (AB) Crichton in 1914.
AB Crichton letterhead
This new company got by on orders from the new Finnish state – including a pair of gunboats Karjala and Turunmaa which would go on to serve in Finland’s wars with the Soviet Union in the 1940s and into the 1950s. But the post-WW1, post-revolution, post-independence and post-civil war recession hit AB Crichton very hard and it built its last ship in 1924. But once again the name it was saved; a merger with its neighbour and rival AB Vulcan formed Crichton-Vulcan Oy. Thus it was that a company with a half-Scottish name and heritage would become Finland’s largest shipyard and was awarded orders in 1927 for two new 3,900 tonne coastal defence armoured ships for the Finnish navy, Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen, the pride of the fleet
Väinämöinen in 1938, pride of the Finish Navy
Both of these ships served in the 1940s wars with the Soviet Union, Ilmarinen hit mines in September 1941 and sank with the loss of 271 men from a crew of 401. The survivors were sardonically termed “Ilmarisen uimaseura” (Ilmarinen‘s Swimming Club). Väinämöinen was a persistent thorn in the enemy side who expended great efforts to sink her. They succeeded in doing so in July 1944 only to find out that thanks to herculean camouflage efforts on the part of the Finns, they had actually sank the German anti-aircraft ship Niobe instead.
And this is why, to this day, there is a street in Turku on the waterfront called Crichtoninkatu or Crichtongatan (please feel free to send me a better picture if you find yourself on that street any time soon!)
Crichtoninkatu in Turku
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