The Wallsend Slipway Co. was founded in 1871 and built 2 vessels in their earliest years - one barge and a screw steamer.

It was a private company formed by Mitchell, Watts, Milburn, Nelson and Donkin to repair ships for their extensive yards along the Tyne. By 1878, they changed their name to the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Co. Ltd. to better representing their engine building interests, which became the staple for the next 100 years.

Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson secured a majority stake in the slipway by 1903, which led to the most significant order in the history of the yard - the turbines for Cunard Mauretania. Work began on the engines in 1905 and was completed in 1908.

The Ordnance Survey of the 1890s shows the yard featuring a dry dock and slipway, with tramways connected to the Newcastle & North Shields at Point Pleasant via an underpass and reversing siding.

Most features have disappeared by 2023, though the mouth of the dock is extant as well as the boundary of the site at Willington Quay.