Birth
William Gemmell was born in Renfrewshire, Scotland in 1848, but his parents moved to Hull soon after his birth.
He worked as a ship builder at Earles’ Shipyard and married Eleanor Brown in Holy Trinity Church in 1868. They had 3 children, and the family lived at 3 Wilberforce St.
Business
In 1882 William, and two of his workmates, Charles Keen Welton and James Cook, formed their own company, Cook, Welton & Gemmell. They had a yard on South Bridge Road on the Humber Bank. In 1901 the company moved to Grovehill in Beverley, on a site purchased from Cochrane, Hamilton & Cooper.
(Around this time the family moved to 507 Anlaby Rd, where they lived until William’s death. The house was the last in the block. It was later incorporated into Humber St Andrew’s Club and is now the William Gemmell pub. His wife died in 1906 aged 64.)
The company built hundreds of ships, specialising mainly in trawlers and employing over 600 people. As their shipyard was on the banks of the River Hull, they famously had to launch their ships sideways into the river. It was a common sight on the road to Beverley to see ships travelling down the River Hull, apparently in open fields!
Liquidation
The company went into liquidation in 1963. It was purchased by CD Holmes Ltd, and renamed Beverley Shipbuilding & Engineering. It then became Whitby Shipyard and then Phoenix Shipbuilding, before closing in 1976. The area is now an industrial estate.
Burial
William died at Withernsea in 1926 aged 79, and is buried with his wife in Hull General Cemetery. Sadly their gravestone no longer remains. Some of their grandchildren are also buried in a separate grave in Hull General Cemetery, but the headstone does not remain.
Launch of ‘Vera’ 1907, Beverley 
William Gemmell public house
