The Legacy of Aberdeen's Shipbuilding Past

Ross MacLennan is taking a look at Aberdeen's shipbuilding past at the Aberdeen Maritime Museum on Wednesday 18 November, from 12:30pm to 1:15pm. It's a lunchtime talk, so it fits into a break rather than taking up your whole evening. MacLennan is a curator at Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums, and he'll be drawing on the museum's own maritime history collection to trace the city's shipbuilding tradition.

That tradition spanned more than 200 years before Aberdeen's last shipyard closed in 1992, and the talk is built around the Aberdeen Built Ships database. The database records over 3,000 ships built in the city, along with the stories of their careers. It wasn't put together overnight, either: a dedicated team of volunteer experts has spent two decades compiling it from a wide range of sources, and it's still growing. MacLennan will explain why that record matters and what the future holds for it, with snapshots of the ships themselves woven in.

It's a good chance to get a sense of a part of the city's history that's easy to overlook now that the yards are gone. If you've ever wondered about the scale of shipbuilding here, the number — over 3,000 ships — gives you a starting point. The talk is at the Aberdeen Maritime Museum, Shiprow, AB11 5BY, and it runs from 12:30pm to 1:15pm on Wednesday 18 November. Entry is pay what you can.