St Clare John Byrne

St Clare John Byrne (1831-1915) was a British naval architect, who specialized in the design of luxury yachts during the late Victorian and early Edwardian period.

[3] By the mid 1850s he was designing larger vessels constructed in iron for the shipyard Brassey, Peto and Betts of Canada Works at Birkenhead.

[7] In the early 1870s he was designing merchant ships and private yachts often constructed as composite, where the frame was made of iron but planked in wood.

[8] Byrne designed a steam auxiliary barquentine yacht for Thomas Brassey of composite construction named Sunbeam.

The Lancashire Witch was designed and built for Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh on the lines of Sunbeam and launched in 1877.

Like Brassey, Hesketh went on a world tour in the Lancashire Witch and on one of the legs set a record for the crossing between the Falkland Islands and South Africa.

Two American clients, James Gordon Bennett and William Kissam Vanderbilt, had yachts designed by Byrne, but built in America.

St Clare John Byrne was a keen golfer and a member of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, Hoylake having joined in 1890.