Men of Invention and Industry

by Samuel Smiles

It was not until the year 1853 that the Queen's Island—raked out of the mud of the slob-land—was first used for shipbuilding purposes. Robert Hickson and Co. then commenced operations by laying down the Mary Stenhouse, a wooden sailing-ship of 1289 tons register; and the vessel was launched in the following year.

The operations of the firm were continued until the year 1859, when the shipbuilding establishments on Queen's Island were acquired by Mr. E. J. Harland (afterwards Harland and Wolff), since which time the development of this great branch of industry in Belfast has been rapid and complete.

From the history of this firm, it will be found that energy is the most profitable of all merchandise; and that the fruit of active work is the sweetest of all fruits. Harland and Wolff are the true Watt and Boulton of Belfast. At the beginning of their great enterprise, their works occupied about four acres of land; they now occupy over thirty-six acres. The firm has imported not less than two hundred thousand tons of iron; which have been converted by skill and labour into 168 ships of 253,000 total tonnage. These ships, if laid close together, would measure nearly eight miles in length.

The advantage to the wage-earning class can only be shortly stated. Not less than 34 per cent. is paid in labour on the cost of the ships turned out. The number of persons employed in the works is 3920; and the weekly wages paid to them is 4000L., or over 200,000L. annually. Since the commencement of the undertaking, about two millions sterling have been paid in wages.

All this goes towards the support of the various industries of the place. That the working classes of Belfast are thrifty and frugal may be inferred from the fact that at the end of 1882 they held deposits in the Savings Bank to the amount of 230,289L., besides 158,064L. in the Post Office Savings Banks.[22] Nearly all the better class working people of the town live in separate dwellings, either rented or their own property. There are ten Building Societies in Belfast, in which industrious people may store their earnings, and in course of time either buy or build their own houses.

The example of energetic, active men always spreads. Belfast contains two other shipbuilding yards, both the outcome of Harland and Wolff's enterprise; those of Messrs. Macilwaine and Lewis, employing about four hundred men, and of Messrs. Workman and Clarke, employing about a thousand. The heads of both these firms were trained in the parent shipbuilding works of Belfast. There is do feeling of rivalry between the firms, but all work together for the good of the town.

In Plutarch's Lives, we are told that Themistocles said on one occasion, "'Tis true that I have never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute, but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness." So might it be said of Harland and Wolff. They have given Belfast not only a potency for good, but a world-wide reputation. Their energies overflow. Mr. Harland is the active and ever-prudent Chairman of the most important of the local boards, the Harbour Trust of Belfast, and exerts himself to promote the extension of the harbour facilities of the port as if the benefits were to be exclusively his own; while Mr. Wolff is the Chairman of one of the latest born industries of the place, the Belfast Rope-work Company, which already gives employment to over 600 persons.

This last-mentioned industry is only about six years old. The works occupy over seven acres of ground, more than six acres of which are under roofing. Although the whole of the raw material is imported from abroad from Russia, the Philippine Islands, New Zealand, and Central America—it is exported again in a manufactured state to all parts of the world.

Such is the contagion of example, and such the ever-branching industries with which men of enterprise and industry can enrich and bless their country. The following brief memoir of the career of Mr. Harland has been furnished at my solicitation; and I think that it will be found full of interest as well as instruction.

Footnotes for Chapter X.