SINKING OF THE TITANIC YARD
As the engine room of the Empire, its 35,000 workers built some of the world’s great ships. But yesterday, holed below the waterline by modern competitors, Harland & Wolff finally went under
For more than 150 years, it has played a key part in the maritime, economic and cultural story of these islands. As of 5.15pm yesterday, however, Harland & Wolff ceased to exist as a company.
once the greatest shipyard in the world — producing some of the most famous ships in British history — the Belfast institution had seen its workforce dwindle from 35,000 to just 125 employees.
They have now received redundancy notices and, this morning, the firm of accountants appointed as administrators, BDO, will file for insolvency.
Though the company had been in steady decline for the past half a century — and had not made a ship for more than 15 years — it had been attempting to reposition itself as a force in the offshore energy sector. However, having spent nine months seeking a buyer, its Norwegian owners, Dolphin Drilling (part of the Fred olsen empire), have given up.
The two giant ‘H & W’ yellow dockyard cranes — known as ‘Samson’ and ‘Goliath’ — may be to Belfast what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris. As of today, however, they merely serve as memorials to the days when the city was the engine room of the British Empire.
As the Financial Times recorded in March 1914, Belfast was then ‘the premier shipbuilding centre of the entire world’. And it owed its global pre-eminence to a partnership formed in 1861 between Yorkshire-born Edward Harland (a former apprentice to George Stephenson, ‘ father of the railways’) and Hamburg- born shipbuilder Gustav Wolff (who went on to become a Tory MP).
Through innovations such as iron decking and broader hulls, the company developed a reputation for building stronger, larger vessels, culminating in a fleet of ocean liners — including the olympic, the Britannic and the Titanic.
The sinking of the latter, in 1912, was one of the greatest disasters in maritime history. Yet it did nothing to dent the prestige of Belfast or of its most famous employer.
That same year, Harland & Wolff acquired new yards in Govan, Liverpool and Southampton, while the observer editor, James Garvin, noted: ‘Belfast has never been more prosperous, more progressive and more proud of itself.’
Having played a key part in warship production during World War I, Harland & Wolff branched out into aircraft production in the Thirties and was central to efforts during World War II. As well as producing more than 130 warships, and several aircraft carriers and the cruiser, HMS Belfast — still moored in pride of place next to London’s Tower Bridge — the workforce also manufactured Stirling bombers and hundreds of Churchill tanks.
This prodigious output came at a price. In 1941, Harland & Wolff was the principal target of the Belfast Blitz. on April 15, 932 people were killed and 50,000 homes were destroyed.
No city outside London — not even Coventry — suffered such losses in a single night. Since there had been no widespread evacuation programme, many of the dead were children.
Come peacetime, the company gradually began to lose its pre-eminence as British shipbuilding was overtaken by cheaper, more efficient rivals.
Even so, it was Harland & Wolff which produced one of the great post-war liners, P&o’s Canberra, in 1960.
Having featured in the James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever, she is best-remembered for her role as a troopship in the Falklands War, serving in the thick of the action.
As Northern Ireland suffered from the Troubles, so, too, did the shipyard.
Historically, Harland & Wolff had always maintained a predominantly Protestant workforce. Links between the yard, the Democratic Unionist Party and the orange order were strong, unambiguous and the source of frequent charges of sectarianism.
For their part, Unionists pointed
out that the workforce had also included Joe Cahill, a convicted murderer who went on to be the IRA’s chief of staff.
The company was nationalised in 1977 and then returned to private hands in 1989 following its sale to a consortium made up of management, the workforce and Norway’s Fred Olsen shipping empire.
With the largest dry dock in Europe, it focused on a new range of ships for the oil industry and the Royal Navy. However, it proved hard enough to compete with British rivals, let alone the wider world.
In 2000, H&W pinned its hopes on the contract to build the new Queen Mary 2 for Cunard, only to lose out to the French.
The last of more than 300 ships to bear the imprimatur of Harland & Wolff was a roll- on/roll- off ferry commissioned by the Ministry of Defence. Called the MV Anvil Point, it left the yard in 2003. The company continued to seek new contracts repairing other ships and servicing the increasingly lucrative renewable energy market.
Last year, it was involved in assembling wind turbines for the North Sea. But it was not enough.
Despite the latest demands for emergency government intervention, the gates have now closed.
‘People will not be surprised but they will be wistful,’ says the Belfast- born historian and academic Lord Bew, 69, recalling that his parents were both GPs with thousands of their patients employed at the shipyard.
‘When I was growing up, the very idea of Belfast without shipyards was unthinkable.’
In his book, Auld Hands, former H&W employee Tom Thompson recounts the lively culture of the shipyard and some of the famous people connected to it. The singer, Van Morrison, grew up in the shadow of Harland & Wolff where his father, George, worked as an electrician.
Our most famous flautist, Sir James Galway, is the son of an H&W riveter, ‘Jimbo’ Galway, a well- known local musician in his day.
Another riveter, Bob Bishop, was responsible for discovering a promising young Manchester United footballer called George Best.
Ironically, despite the company’s many triumphs, it is Harland & Wolff’s greatest disaster for which it is best remembered.
The old shipyard district has been rebranded as ‘The Titanic Quarter’, complete with museum and packed waterfront restaurants.
Thanks to the enduring appeal of the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster, the Titanic story continues to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.
Last month, the city’s port and tourism authorities jointly pulled off one of the great public relations masterstrokes of modern times: opening a new purpose-built cruise ship terminal on a site dedicated to the worst cruise ship tragedy of all time.
So, Harland & Wolff may sadly be no more. But as the Oscar-winning theme tune goes: ‘My Heart Will Go On . . .’