Shipbuilding - 1940’s British Council Film Collection - CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage

From the laying of the keel through to the riveting of steel plates - teams of men work together to build and launch a steel ship. Trivia The shipyard in Steel Goes to Sea is the Burntisland Shipbuilding Company’s in Fife. The gentleman checking his watch before the ship’s launch was Wilfrid Ayre, managing director of the company. The ship being built in the film is thought to be either the MV Dalhousie or the SS Ger-y-Bryn. Both ships were sunk by German vessels by April 1943. Steel Goes to Sea states that the thousands of steel plates coming into the shipyard are tested by Lloyd’s before leaving the steelworks. Lloyd’s of London, a company specialising in maritime insurance at the time of production, is the topic of a another film in this collection - A.1. at Lloyd’s. The British Council acknowledged that in the case of this film they had to “soft-pedal the war effort“, as they were debarred from making films about the war by the Ministry of Information at the time of production. This film has been made available by the British Council Film Collection for non-commercial research and educational purposes . . The British Council Film Collection consists of 120 short documentaries made by the British Council during the 1940s designed to show the world how Britain lived, worked and played. View, download and play with the Collection at . CharlieDeanArchives - Archive footage from the 20th century making history come alive!