Biography:

In 1830 Cramp established his shipbuilding firm on the Delaware River, first in Kensington and then in a larger facility in Port Richmond.  The shipyard grew to become one of the most important in the United States, constructing wood, ironclad, iron, and eventually steel ships.  Cramp remained president of the firm for forty-nine years until his death in 1879.  As sail power gave way to steam-powered paddle wheels and then propeller-driven vessels, Cramp developed steam-engine facilities. During the Civil War he provided the Union navy steam-propelled ironclads.  Following the Civil War iron construction replaced wooden hulls through the 1870s. The firm was ready for the revolution of the 1880s, which brought steel-hulled ships into the naval and merchant fleets of the world.  During his lifetime Cramp personally oversaw the construction of more than 200 ships.  Cramp brought his sons into the business, admitting Charles H. Cramp as a partner.  In 1872 he changed the name of the firm to William Cramp and Sons' Ship and Engine Building Company.  The company won contracts to build warships for several foreign navies, including those of Russia and Venezuela.  As the U.S. Navy pressed for expansion of the fleet in the 1870s and 1880s, the firm of William Cramp and Sons played a role both in advocacy of the new navalism, and in construction of the steel ships of the new navy.
The William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine Company was a major contributor to the growth of Delaware River shipbuilding in the late nineteenth century, concentrating manpower, skills, technological capability, facilities, and political power.
Married to Sophia Miller in 1827, they had eleven children.