Sir Joseph William Isherwood, 1st Baronet (23 June 1870 – 24 October 1937) was a British naval architect. He invented the Isherwood System of longitudinal construction of ships and the Arcform System. Isherwood was born in Hartlepool, the son of a grocer. He was educated at on the Headland, near St Hilda's church, and at the age of fifteen entered the drawing office of the Hartlepool shipbuilders Edward Withy & Co. He served in several departments in that firm and in 1896 left to become a ship surveyor with Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Here he developed the Isherwood System, a new stronger, safer, and cheaper longitudinal girder form of ship construction designed to replace the traditional traverse construction method (ribs placed at regular intervals along the keel), which he patented i