The history of Thos. B.Royden & Co. began in 1800 when Thomas Royden in partnership with a timber merchant named Bland started to build small sailing ships in Liverpool on the site where the Brunswick Dock stands today. It was a fairly common practice in those days, especially in Canada, for a timber supplier to work in conjunction with a shipbuilder. The timber would be supplied on credit and the timber merchant would recoup his costs plus a percentage of the profit from the sale of the ship. Royden's in this instance provided the yard and between six and twenty four shipwrights to build the ships which were of a basic design and rig to carry a specific tonnage of cargo at a quoted price.

   As with most other shipbuilders Royden and Bland often ended up with shares in some of the ships they built and occasionally, when new buildings were not sold quickly, they operated the ships on their own account. It was quite common to build ships 'on spec' in order to keep the yard busy so that key personnel were not lost to other yards and the move into ship owning and operating was a slow but logical step.

   By 1854 Thomas Royden was building one wooden ship every other year for their own account and seven were completed on that basis. The Anne Royden (1175grt), completed in 1856, was the largest wooden ship built for their fleet and operated out of Liverpool to India. In 1860 the smallest of the fleet was the Zingara (287grt) built for the South America trade and the difference between these two ships indicates the spread of Royden's sea-going activities at that time.

   The yard started to build iron hulls in 1864 and, apart from intermarriage, the Bland family had no involvement whatsoever in the company which was known as Thos. B Royden & Son and headed by Thomas Bland Royben who was later to become Lord Royden. In July of that year the barque Beatrice (591grt) joined the fleet on the Liverpool to Australia run, quickly followed by six other iron hulled vessels, the Clifford (915grt), the Ismyr (610grt), the L'Allegro (612grt), Royden's largest sailing ship the Lucile (1491grt), the Lurlei (835grt) and the Sabina (792grt). The sailing ships operating to India gradually came under the management of the Liverpool firm of McVicar, Marshall & Co. who were well established in that particular trade.