This essay presents statistical evidence on shipbuilding in the southeast of England during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Based on official data, the series in appendices A and  cover only private shipbuilding, ignoring work in the Royal Dockyards or for the Admiralty. While the gap for individual ports between 1827 and 1865 seriously undermines our understanding of the southeast's performance in the period during which it lost its leading position, an analysis of the output of the various centres both before and after these decades sheds new light on the industry by identifying shipbuilding characteristics in specific ports. Although the statistical record highlights distinct features, an explanation is difficult because shipbuilding in the region has been examined in detail for only two ports, although some studies of shipping in this part of Britain contain relevant incidental detail. The work by Sidney Pollard and Philip Banbury on London, and by Adrian Ranee on Southampton, enables us to place the statistical record for these ports in a rewarding comparative context. But for other centres the industry's history remains obscure; for such locales the collation of official figures at least provides a foundation for further study. Yet our understanding of London and Southampton also gains from this data, which has been under-exploited by scholars. Nevertheless, this paper does not claim to do more than provide a firmer basis for further investigation.

For contemporaries, as well as some historians, the most striking change in nineteenth-century British shipbuilding was its relocation to new regions as the introduction of metal in hull construction and the application of steam power shifted comparative advantages northward. Using the evidence for northeast shipbuilding, Simon Ville has shown that this generalization is too crude because it understates the contribution of “new” centres prior to this change. Whether or not Ville overstated the output of Newcastle and Sunderland in the early nineteenth century, his analysis is a reminder that the importance of London shipbuilding requires both more demonstration and explanation than it has been conventionally accorded. London's “success” should not be taken for granted. In a similar vein, the well-documented decline of London shipbuilding after 1866 must not be assumed to be typical of the entire southeast.