On Saturday, February
5th 1898 eight prosperous Victorian businessmen met to finalise the
creation of Motherwell Bridge, for “…the purpose of manufacturing
iron and steel bridges and work of a kindred nature.” This was a boom
time for business in Lanarkshire, the very cradle of Scotland’s industrial
revolution. And on the back of early success, the company embarked
on the new century with the famous railway bridge at Central Station
in Glasgow.
In the 1920s the company began to open up overseas markets and
by the middle of this decade,
foreign enterprises were well established, with offices in South
Africa, China, New Zealand and Thailand. The 1930s period also saw
Motherwell Bridge appointed by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company as
the sole supplier of oil storage vessels in Persia and the beginning
of the company’s role in opening up the Middle East petrochemical
industry.
Throughout the 1940s and1950s the company continued to forge ahead
as they took on the greatest challenges of the infant nuclear era,
including the construction of the then biggest nuclear power station
in the world at Hunterston.
In the 70s, there was North Sea Oil, Motherwell Bridge began working
on the Flotta Oil terminal in Orkney. Sullom Voe, the largest oil
terminal in Europe was being planned for the Shetland Islands, and
Motherwell Bridge gained a contract there which was to last to this
day.
With these contracts, the company firmly established itself as
a multi-discipline engineering group of
true international standing. The company which in 100 years has
contributed so mightily to landmark engineering developments across
the globe, remains driven both by innovation and the desire to meet
even the most demanding challenges of the next century.
History, as they say, is about to repeat itself.
