John Isaac Thornycroft

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John Isaac Thornycroft
Naval architect and founder of two firms carrying the Thornycroft name
Born	February 1843 Vatican City, Rome
Died	June 1928 Bembridge, Isle Of Wight

Sir John Isaac Thornycroft (1843–1928) was the founder of the Thornycroft shipbuilding company. He was the son of Mary Thornycroft, the sculptress.

He established a shipbuilding yard on the River Thames at Chiswick in 1864. He built his first steam launch when he was 19 years old. In 1877, his first vessel for the Royal Navy was a motor torpedo boat.

His yard built a steam powered lorry which led them into the vehicle manufacturing business, the Thornycroft named business lasting until the late 20th century.

Thornycroft worked on means of aiding hull lubrication by air which also led him to hydrofoil. This led him to develop stepped chine hulls which used for 55 ft Coastal Motor Boats during the war gave them speeds of up to 40 knots[1].

In 1904, he transferred larger shipbuilding activities to Southampton. In 1908 he also set up the Hampton Launch Works on Platts Eyot, an island on the Thames at Hampton, Middlesex.

This boatbuilding works concentrated on cabin cruisers and speedboats, but also produced small naval craft - Coastal Motor Boats in the First World War and Motor Torpedo Boats, Motor Launches and landing craft in the Second World War. Thornycrofts closed their boatbuilding operation on Platt's Eyot when they were taken over by Vospers in the mid-1960s.

The Southampton shipyard continues to operate as a VT Shipbuilding (Vosper-Thornycroft) company.

Sir John Thornycroft was the brother of Hamo Thornycroft, the British sculptor, and uncle of the war poet Siegfried Sassoon. His son Isaac Thomas Thornycroft skippered the motorboat Gyrinus II to two gold medals at 1908 Olympic Games.