28 
COMMERCIAL YEAR BOOK OF THE 
We are not even without hope of re-establishing the ship-repairing industry of the 
port that once regularly built its own ships of war and commerce, and built for others 
too. Was not the first steamer that was ever built for the North Atlantic traffic the 
Great Western of Bristol ? Was not the Saucy Areihnsa Bristol built ? We do not hope 
to rival the shipbuilding yards of Belfast, the Clyde, or the Tyne, but we can put a 
Dreadnought into our dry dock at Avonmouth when we get the chance. We have 
progressed in the last generation or two from small, tidal, railway-less docks to huge 
floating docks, that can take and handle a Mauretania, and have direct railway access 
to all parts of the kingdom. 
The half a million of dock capital with which the Corporation purchased and improved 
the quays in 1848 has become six millions, for which we have secured dock accommodation 
that is attracting ships from all parts of the world. Canada looks to Bristol for markets, 
and does not look in vain. Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Coast are sending 
new lines to Bristol. The trade with the United States and the Old World grows apace. 
And still we have room for more ships, still we have power to absorb more cargoes ; while 
our exports of manufactures increase year by year. 
There has been corresponding development and multiplication of factories ; and we 
have made new sites for more. So varied are Bristol’s industries that she never suffers 
the great depressions which periodically overtake places of but one industry. Our old 
streets and bridges are improved beyond recognition. Our suburbs have grown amazingly. 
In the last five-and-twenty years the advance of Bristol, commercially, socially, 
educationally, and religiously, has been at least as remarkable as any other English city 
can record. The civic area has been quadrupled ; the population (360,000) and the 
rateable value (£2,000,000) have nearly doubled in that time. The two members of 
Parliament have become four. The onward movement has been felt in every department 
of life. 
People at a distance in this country, and people abroad, are realising that Bristol 
has indeed awakened, and is moving at a pace worthy of the days when she ranked as 
the second city in the kingdom. She is not living on her past, great as it is, but has become 
a city and port to be reckoned with now, and still more in the near future.