Others who knew him well during this important period of his career testify in the like manner.
“Diligent to the point of strenuousness,” wrote one of them, “thinking whilst others slept, reading while others played, through sheer toil and ability he made for himself a position that few of his years attain”; and then the writer, whose ideal of life is character, notes approvingly and justly that Andrews worked not as a hireling, but in the spirit of an artist whose work must satisfy his own exacting conscience.
Those boundless energies soon were given wider scope. Early in 1907 the Adriatic was finished, and in March of that same year he was made a Managing Director of the Firm, the Right Hon. A. M. Carlisle being at this time Chairman of the Board. Everyone knows, or can judge for himself, what were the duties of this new position—this additional position, rather, for he still remained Chief of the Designing department—and what, in such a huge and complicated concern as the Island works, the duties involved. Briefly we may summarise them.
A knowledge of its fifty-three branches equal to that of any of the fifty-three men in charge of them; the supervising these, combining and managing them so that all might, smoothly and efficiently, work to the one great end assigned, the keeping abreast with the latest devices in labour-saving appliances, with the newest means of securing economical fitness, with the most modern discoveries in electrical, mechanical and marine engineering—in short, everything relative to the construction and equipment of modern steamships; and in addition all the numerous and delicate duties devolving upon him as Lord Pirrie’s Assistant. Furthermore, the many voyages of discovery, so to speak, which he made as representative of the Firm, thereby, we are told by one with whom he sailed often, “gaining a knowledge of sea life and the art of working a ship unequalled in my experience by anyone not by profession a seafarer”; and, lastly, his many inspections of, and elaborate reports upon, ships and business works, together with his survey, at Lord Pirrie’s instance, of the Harbours of Ireland, Canada, Germany, and elsewhere.
It seems a giant’s task. Even to us poor humdrum mortals, toiling meanly on office stools at our twopenny enterprises, it seems more than a giant’s task. Yet Andrews shouldered it, unweariedly, cheerily, joyfully, for pure love of the task.
One sees him, big and strong, a paint-smeared bowler hat on his crown, grease on his boots and the pockets of his blue jacket stuffed with plans, making his daily round of the Yards, now consulting his Chief, now conferring with a foreman, now interviewing an owner, now poring over intricate calculations in the Drawing office, now in company with his warm friend, old schoolfellow, and co-director, Mr. George Cumming of the Engineering department, superintending the hoisting of a boiler by the two hundred ton crane into some newly launched ship by a wharf. Or he runs amok through a gang—to their admiration, be it said—found heating their tea-cans before horn-blow; or comes unawares upon a party enjoying a stolen smoke below a tunnel-shaft, and, having spoken his mind forcibly, accepts with a smile the dismayed sentinel’s excuse that “’twasn’t fair to catch him by coming like that into the tunnel instead of by the way he was expected.” Or he kicks a red hot rivet, which has fallen fifty feet from an upper deck, missing his head by inches, and strides on laughing at his escape. Or he calls some laggard to stern account, promising him the gate double quick without any talk next time. Or he lends a ready hand to one in difficulties; or just in time saves another from falling down a hold; or saying that married men’s lives are precious, orders back a third from some dangerous place and himself takes the risk. Or he runs into the Drawing office with a hospital note and a gift of flowers and fruit for the sick wife of a draughtsman. Or at horn-blow he stands by a ship’s gangway, down which four thousand hungry men, with a ninety feet drop below them, are rushing for home and supper, and with voice and eye controls them ... a guard rope breaks ... another instant and there may be grim panic on the gangway ... but his great voice rings out, “Stand back, men,” and he holds them as in a leash until the rope is made good again.
All in the day’s work, those and a thousand other incidents which men treasure to-day in the Island, and, if you are tactful, will reveal to you in their slow laconic Northern way. He has been in the Yard perhaps since four or five o’clock—since six for a certainty. At seven or so he will trudge home, or ride in a tramcar with the other workers, to sit over his plans or his books well into the night.
One recalls a day, not long ago, spent most of it in tramping over the Island Works, guided by two men who had worked for many years with Andrews and who, like others we saw and thousands we did not see, held his memory almost in reverence. In and out, up and down we went, through heat and rain, over cobble stones and tram lines; now stepping on planks right down the double bottom, three hundred yards long, from which was soon to rise the Titanic’s successor; now crouching amongst the shores sustaining the huge bulk of another half-plated giant; now passing in silent wonder along the huge cradles and ways above which another monster stood ready for launching. Then into shop after shop in endless succession, each needing a day’s journey to traverse, each wonderfully clean and ordered, and all full of wonders. Boilers as tall as houses, shafts a boy’s height in diameter, enormous propellers hanging like some monstrous sea animal in chains, turbine motors on which workmen clambered as upon a cliff, huge lathes, pneumatic hammers, and quiet slow-moving machines that dealt with cold steel, shearing it, punching it, planing it, as if it had been so much dinner cheese. Then up into the Moulding Loft, large enough for a football ground, and its floor a beautiful maze of frame lines; on through the Joiners’ shops, with their tools that can do everything but speak; through the Smiths’ shops, with their long rows of helmet-capped hearths, and on into the great airy building, so full of interest that one could linger in it for a week, where an army of Cabinetmakers are fashioning all kinds of ship’s furniture. Then across into the Central power station, daily generating enough electricity to light Belfast. On through the fine arched Drawing hall, where the spirit of Tom Andrews seemed still to linger, and into his office where often he sat drafting those reports, so exhaustively minute, so methodical and neatly penned, which now have such pathetic and revealing interest. Lastly, after such long journeying, out to a wharf and over a great ship, full of stir and clamour, and as thronged with workmen as soon it would be with passengers.
