John Barnard (1705–1784) was an 18th century English shipbuilder serving the Royal Navy.
Life
HMS Hampshire under construction at IpswichHMS Alarm at seaHMS Ambuscade fighting Bayonnaise
He was born in 1705 the son of John Barnard a shipwright in Ipswich (1665-1716) and his wife Mary (1668-1734).[1]
His father died before he began his apprenticeship but would standardly have joined a ship as a carpenter's apprentice at age 14 and served 7 years on ship before beginning shipbuilding on shore.[2]
From 1733 he was employed at St Clement's Yard in Ipswich, but is only formally listed as a Royal Navy employee from April 1740 when as a Master Shipwright he launched HMS Bideford. In October 1742 he relocated to Harwich Dockyard. In 1773 he opened a secondary yard known as Barnard's Thames Yard at Deptford.[2]
also dabbled in design, creating the Zephyr class in 1778/9.[2] Barnard appears to have gone bankrupt in 1781. This could be the result of under-pricing on a single ship. Inflation in Great Britain was unusually high (at around 13%) in 1780, and this would also cause problems on keeping to a stated contract price on a job which often took two or three years to complete.[3] His bankruptcy coincides with his beginning to work for the East India Company but it is unclear if this was part of the cause or part of the solution. He also had opened a third yard (almost certainly with his own finance rather than funded by the Royal Navy) at Rotherhithe around 1780. This would have been a considerable expense.
He retired in December 1782 aged 77 and died in Deptford on 8 October 1784.[2]
Family
In 1728 he married Anne Notcutt. They were parents to William Barnard who continued the shipbuilding yard.[1]
Ships of Note
HMS Bideford a 20-gun ship launched at St Clement's Yard in Ipswich in 1740
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