Lairds Graving Docks at Birkenhead: the Hibernia under repair, 1861. At the Birkenhead Ironworks the first vessels for the United States of America, for the River Indus, for the Nile, Euphrates, Tigris, and other important rivers of the East, were built. The first steam-frigate ever constructed for the Admiralty was also built there...from 1829 up to this time nearly three hundred vessels, of a total gross tonnage of upwards of 100,000 tons, have been constructed at the above establishment. There are now from two to three thousand men employed there, a large number of vessels being in course of construction in addition to the Galway vessels, the Hibernia and Columbia, which are undergoing very heavy repairs. From "Illustrated London News", 1861.