H & W spells Titanic
Welcome to Belfast, our beautiful capital city of Northern Ireland, situated
at the head of a great sea lough, looking east across the Irish Sea to the
rest of Europe.
But look UP--- wherever you go in Belfast, for no visitor today to downtown
Belfast can miss spying the famous 'H & W' legend emblazoned on one
of the gigantic towering cranes.
Now look DOWN, for underneath the gigantic mobile cranes spreads one of
the world's greatest and most modern shipyards - Harland & Wolff (H&W)
- birthplace of the Titanic.
But it wasn't always like this...
It took 70 years of preparation for Belfast Lough to develop such shipbuilding
facility and expertise as would be needed for the construction of the world's
largest, mobile, man-made structure: the ocean-going liner, RMS Titanic.
During The Great Famine years of the 1840s, which devastated Ireland's agricultural
base, industrial and manufacturing Belfast was busy preparing for its role
as a world shipbuilder. The city's River Lagan sea estuary was dredged to
create the deep Victoria Channel and, on 300 adjacent acres reclaimed from
the sea, the Queen's Island; names commemorating the city's close links
with Victorian Britain
The new deep water channel and the construction of
some 8 miles of quay enabled Belfast to accommodate the world's largest
vessels with a resultant boost not only in the growth of Belfast Harbour
and Shipyards but of the city itself.
In 1853 a small iron shipbuilding firm named Robert Hickson & Company
moved to part of the harbour area known as Queen's Island and there Belfast
shipbuilding began in earnest.
A year later the firm employed 24 year old Edward James Harland as General
Manager. In 1858 , Harland bought the company for £1000.
Within three years, Harland was joined in partnership by Gustav Wilhelm
Wolff. Their combined surnames would echo through Titanic's story. The Harland
& Wolff (H&W) Shipyard had embarked on the journey to become the
household name it remains today.
Among the 150 employees present at the birth of 'H&W' was a young apprentice
draughtsman named William Pirrie. After the death of Harland and the retirement
of Wolff, in 1906 Pirrie inherited complete control of the shipyard and
of a work force now numbering over 15,000.
With H&W having already completed the fabulous North Atlantic 'White
Star' passenger liner , the 'Oceanic' (1871), for the Oceanic Steam Navigation
Company Ltd, the task of meeting the challenge of the
North Atlantic Race in the new century fell to the now titled entrepreneur-
Lord Pirrie.