by Ian Sebire
The Designer of the ‘Big U’
Of all the great ship designers, perhaps none is more inextricably linked to a single, exceptional vessel, than William Francis Gibbs and the SS United States. Yet to focus entirely on this culminating achievement, this manifestation of his ‘big ship’ ideal, is to miss out on the life of an extraordinary and complex man.
Gibbs was born on 24th August 1886, the son of a dogmatic financier whose skill at accumulating multi-million-dollar fortunes was matched only by his ability to squander them. Young William attended Delaney School in Philadelphia, before moving on to Harvard in 1906, as society and his parents dictated. Following three years of study, but notably without a degree, he moved to New York, where he studied law, ultimately graduating from Columbia law school in 1913. Superficially, Gibbs was fulfilling his father’s expectations, settling into a ‘worthwhile’ life as a real estate lawyer in his native Philadelphia. Secretly however, William Francis and his younger brother Frederic Herbert were pursuing a parallel course. Gibbs’ studies and day job masked a secretive nocturnal and weekend obsession. In the dead of night, he was studying naval architecture.