In about 1882 when Franz Oscar Kindberg was three years old he came to West Hartlepool with his father Carl. Mr Kindberg senior was a sea-going carpenter who set up a building business. He died in 1916. His son converted the business to cater for the repairs of the many sailing ships that entered Hartlepool. The business started out as Kindberg & Sanderson Ltd. With Franz as the director. The firm began by employing just five joiners. At the beginning of World War 11 there were thirteen employees and by 1945 the number had increased to 45. During the World Wars Kindberg's built many rescue rafts & between 1939 & 1945 repaired 1,158 vessels. Before Franz retired he had the contract for the re-fitting of auxiliaries aboard Hitler's former yacht. One of his more curious memories of his time carrying out repairs was finding a swordfish embedded in the planks of a leaking hull.
His firm was engaged in re-fitting many of the trawlers that were released by the Admiralty after having been engaged as minesweepers. One of these was the trawler Ben Tarbert in 1949.
The firm was taken over in 1947 by Herbert S Crace & RS Klottrup.
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Kindberg
