Building Ships at Walkers Limited

Walkers Limited engineering works, founded in Maryborough in 1867 to manufacture heavy castings for sugar milling and railway locomotives and rolling stock, began building ships a decade later in 1877.

The company went on to launch 36 ships into the Mary River for the Royal Australian Navy, including the corvette HMAS Maryborough in 1940. A minesweeper and the city’s namesake, the Maryborough was the first naval vessel built in Queensland during World War II. Walkers, now owned by Evans Deakin and Company, … was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in 2017, acknowledged as one of Queensland’s greatest companies spanning 150 years of engineering manufacturing.