A. Leslie and Company was a shipbuilding

Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.Shipbuilding and ship repairs, both...

 company that was started in around 1853, based North-East England. The company later merged with the locomotive

Locomotive

A locomotive is a railway vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. The word originates from the Latin loco – "from a place", ablative of locus, "place" + Medieval Latin motivus, "causing motion", and is a shortened form of the term locomotive engine, first used in the early 19th...

 manufacturer R and W Hawthorn

R and W Hawthorn

R and W Hawthorn Ltd was a locomotive manufacturer in Newcastle upon Tyne, England from 1817 until 1880.-Locomotive building:Robert Hawthorne first began business at Forth Bank Works in 1817, building marine and stationary steam engines. In 1820, his brother joined him and the firm became R and W...

 to create Hawthorn Leslie and Company

Hawthorn Leslie and Company

R. & W. Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Limited, usually referred to as Hawthorn Leslie, was a shipbuilding and locomotive manufacturer. The Company was founded on Tyneside in 1886 and ceased building ships in 1982.-History:...

 in 1886, when the founder Andrew Leslie

Andrew Leslie (shipbuilder)

Andrew Leslie was a Scottish shipbuilder.Born in 1818 in Garth, Dunrossness, Shetland to Christian Allison and Robert Leslie, Leslie later moved to Aberdeen. In 1853 Leslie relocated to Hebburn in North-East England where he founded the shipbuilding company A. Leslie and Company. When Andrew...

retired.

Between 1854 and 1885 the ship yard built 255 vessels. The company employed around 2600 men, with more jobs in ancillary trades.