the river and still survives, it was last used in 2004, and now Grade II* listed. At the height of its shipbuilding activities, J. S. White had shipbuilding slipways on the eastern side of the River Medina at East Cowes and fitting-out quays, engineering works and administration offices at Cowes on the western side of the river. In 1922 J. S. White established the 'Island Transport Co. Ltd.' with barges running from Southampton, (and initially Portsmouth) to East Cowes to carry supplies for the shipyards. Any spare capacity was used to carry general, commercial cargo. After the shipyards closed in 1965, the trade was just general cargo. The Island Transport company was sold to the Red Funnel Group in 1968. At some time, J. S. White acquired the Henry Bannister, rope making business of Cowes. In 1954 J. S. White acquired the shipbuilding business of William Weatherheads at Cockenzie, Scotland. the business was carried on under the name 'William Weatherhead & Sons (1954) Ltd' until 1965 when it was renamed 'J. Samuel White (Scotland) Ltd'. In 1961 J. S. White acquired the postcard and greeting-card printing business of J. Arthur Dixon with production facilities at Newport, Isle of Wight and at Inverness, Scotland. The company was sold in 1974 to the Dickinson Robinson Group. With the regular construction of turbines, boilers, steam and diesel engines, the Cowes site became an engineering works. With the closing of the shipbuilding section in 1965, the works on the East Cowes side of the river were sold to the British Hovercraft Corporation in 1966. In 1968 the company received a take-over bid for the whole group of companies from the Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust; by December 1968 the take-over was complete - at this time it was reported that there were 1000 people employed over the group. In 1971 Foreign and Colonial Investment Trust sold the company to Spectrol Holdings, a UK subsidiary of the Carrier Corporation of Syracuse, New York. By 1979 the company had been renamed Elliott Turbomachinery Ltd and employed almost 850 people; and the American parent company, the Carrier Corporation, was taken over by another American company, United Technologies. In 1981 the company finally ceased trading and the sites were closed. "Sammy" White built well over two thousand vessels at their various shipyards at East Cowes between 1803 and their closure in 1963. Naval vessels An order in 1911