John Brown and Company of Clydebank was a Scottish marine engineering and shipbuilding firm. It built many notable and world-famous ships including RMS Lusitania, HMS Hood, HMS Repulse, RMS Queen Mary, RMS Queen Elizabeth and RMS Queen Elizabeth 2. At its height, from 1900 to the 1950s, it was one of the most highly regarded, and internationally famous, shipbuilding companies in the world. However thereafter, along with other UK shipbuilders, John Brown's found it increasingly difficult to compete with the emerging shipyards in Eastern Europe and the far East.