Added to this, the shipyards themselves could not afford the sophisticated power machines necessary for fashioning iron plates and angles, nor did they have the room for them. The prejudice against ironwork was such that even in more populated areas, where personnel could be recruited from other civil engineering fields, some shipbuilders held out against it, and owners perhaps more so.

  An example of this is provided by the famous shipbuilder Thomas Royden ofLiverpool, whose shipyard was established in 1818 and who by 1863 had built over seventy wooden ships, some of them with engines.
 
  In this year, however, when his two sons quoted, against his wish, for the construction of two iron-hulled ships, he said he would quit if they got the order. They did and he did; and the firm went on to build some of the finest and longest-lasting metal-hulled sailing and steamships ever to sail the oceans.
By a curious coincidence, in the same year, 1863, the well known Blackwall frigate builder Richard Green died. Up to the time ofhis death he had steadfastly refused to build in anything other than teak and oak, and only after his death the firm commenced building iron ships.

  However, some far-sighted Scotsmen saw the necessity for starting shipyards from scratch, equipped with the necessary machinery for iron plate and angle work, and with men specially trained for this work alone.

  The traditional shipwright was still necessary for decks and many parts of the ship's structure and for the lining off and mould loft work. Demarcation of work was always a sore point, no man, understandably, being willing to see his traditional function usurped, and it was finally agreed that shipwrights would actually mark out the metalwork and make the templates for it. Demarcation of work was such that, for instance, a plain wooden rail, simply rounded off at the edges, would be a shipwright'sjob, whereas if the edges were moulded to a fancy shape they would become a ship joiner's work. This may seem to be splitting hairs to those whose job has never been encroached upon, but usually when new methods or materials are introduced into a work procedure, a sensible consultation well beforehand can settle any differences, whereas a sudden presentation of such a situation with a loss in earning power for someone will cause trouble. Two of the far-sighted Scotsmen mentioned were John Laird, who established a shipyard on Merseyside at Birkenhead, and William Fairburn, whose yard was on the Thames. This was in the 1830s. The banks of these two rivers became the main centres for iron shipbuilding, with the Clyde and most of the Northwest coast shipyards following soon after.