Wartime shipbuilder Janet honoured as new frigate assembly facility is named

The Janet Harvey Hall – part of a £300m investment in shipbuilding facilities on the Clyde – will be central to the construction of warships for decades to come, beginning with the Type 26/City-class frigates.

When construction on the cavernous facility – large enough to accommodate two of the 8,000-tonne/150m-long frigates (just a little bit smaller than a Type 45 destroyer) – is complete, it will significantly speed up the delivery of new warships, crucially shielding them from the vagaries of the Glaswegian weather.

Janet Harvey’s name was selected for the new hall on the south bank of the Clyde as she became one of the doyens of the ‘greatest generation’ in her home city.

Aged 18 in 1940, Janet answered her nation’s call for every man and woman to step forward where possible to support the war effort.

She volunteered to work as an electrician – one of a handful of women toiling alongside around 100,000 men in the Clyde’s many shipyards, producing warships and merchant vessels.

She worked at both the Fairfield yard in Govan, then John Brown’s further down the river, spending six years ‘at the coalface’ before leaving when demobbed Glaswegian troops returned to resume their shipbuilding jobs post-war.

It took nearly eight decades for her commitment to be formally acknowledge, when, at the age of 96, she was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Engineering from Glasgow Caledonian University in recognition of her outstanding contribution to Glasgow’s shipyards during the war.

She died on Armistice Day last year at the age of 101 – but her name and her efforts will live on for decades to come courtesy of the huge assembly hall rising at the Govan site where she once worked.

“Janet would have been absolutely delighted to have the ship build hall named after her,” said her niece June Cofflet.

“She was so very proud of the work she did during the war. She had great memories of her time working on the Clyde and felt that the work she did made a difference.

“As a family we are delighted that BAE Systems has chosen our aunt’s name to go on the ship build hall, it is a real honour.”

The Fairfield works are today part of BAE Systems, which is building all eight Type 26 frigates to deal with the latest and emerging submarine threats.

As many as 500 people will work per shift in the hall when it’s operational, using the latest shipbuilding techniques to complete the replacements to the Royal Navy’s existing Type 23 frigate flotilla.

Jen Blee, Business Operations Director of BAE Systems’ Naval Ships, said though the new hall bore Janet’s name, it honoured the contribution of all women who worked on the Clyde as electricians, welders, engineers and platers during the war to build the warships and merchant vessels which delivered victory.

“It’s fitting that a pioneer such as Janet will remain synonymous with our efforts to re-imagine complex shipbuilding on the upper Clyde,” she added.

“Today, women like Janet are much more commonplace in our yards than they once were and their numbers and impact continue to grow.

“We owe so much to generations past and will use the wisdom they gave us to create our own legacy for generations to come.”

The first two ships in the class – HMS Glasgow and Cardiff – spent months on the standing outside the existing assembly facilities at Govan as work continued to complete them.

Glasgow is in the closing stages of fitting out at BAE’s Scotstoun works across the river, while Cardiff is due to join her shortly; she’s due to be floated down the Clyde on a barge, before being lowered into the water and towed back to Scotstoun in the coming few weeks.