Taikoo Dockyard Managers – Philip Forster Nicholson, 1907-1910

IDJ has sent a series of articles about managers at Taikoo Dockyard: The first manager, appointed in 1907, was Philip Forster Nicholson, who was born at West Bolden near Sunderland in 1872, his father being a North East Coast shipowner.

In 1898 he joined R.& W. Hawthorne Leslie & Co., Ltd, and in 1902 was appointed their Shipyard Manager at Hebburn-on-Tyne.

From 1907 to 1910, as the first Manager of Taikoo Dockyard, there fell to him the task of laying the foundations of the new Company’s organisation, building up a staff and labour force, laying out plant, machinery and equipment and establishing its connections with the shipping community it was to serve.

One who remembers him at that time writes “He was good at his profession and a man of the highest character – I held him, as did all the staff, in the highest respect.”

Source: Fifty Years of Shipbuilding and Repairing in the Far East: The Taikoo Dockyard & Engineering Company of Hong Kong Ltd, Technical Advertising Services, 1954

This article was first posted on 25th June 2016.

Related Indhhk articles: Taikoo Dockyard Managers:

1. Taikoo Dockyard – D MacDonald – responsible for preparatory construction work pre-1907
2. Taikoo Dockyard Managers – James Reid, 1910-1926
3. Taikoo Dockyard Managers – Kenneth Edward Grieg, 1926 -1937
4. Taikoo Dockyard Managers – John Finnie, 1937 – ?

Related Indhhk articles:

1. Tai Koo Dockyard – 1911 detailed technical article covering its construction
2. Tai Koo Dockyard
3. Taikoo Dockyard during the Occupation 1942-1945 – new information and photo
4. World War Two – BAAG, Mateys and Allied attempts to disrupt HK Dockyards
5. Facebook: ‘Photos of Taikoo and Kowloon Dock Families’ group
6. James Thirlwell – Tai Koo Dockyard, Master Mariner and captain of the tug “Tai Koo”
7. Tai Koo Dockyard Tug 2 – captained by James Thirwell when sunk by a mine 1941