Harland and Wolff

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Samson and Goliath gantry cranes.

Directional sign for H&W Shipyard

Workers leaving the shipyard at Queens road, RMS Titanic can be seen in the background

Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries began as a shipyard located in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

1 Early history
2 The war years
3 Post war period and decline
4 Ships built
5 External links

[edit] Early history

Harland and Wolff was formed in 1861 by Edward James Harland (1831–1895) and Hamburg-born Gustav Wilhelm Wolff (1834–1913, in the UK from age 14). Harland had bought the small shipyard on Queen's Island, in which he was employed as general manager, from Robert Hickson in 1858. The shipyard has built many types of ships continuously since then, the most famous being the RMS Titanic. Their main business today is ship repair and conversion work, ship design and bridge building. Harland and Wolff also owns the world's largest dry dock, which is in Belfast.

After buying Hickson's shipyard, Harland made Wolff, his assistant, a partner in the company. Wolff was the nephew of Gustavus Schwabe, a financier from Hamburg. Schwabe had heavily invested in the Bibby Line, and the first three ships that the newly incorporated shipyard built were for the that line. Harland made a success of the business through several innovations, notably replacing the wooden upper decks with iron ones which increased the strength of the ships; and giving the hulls a flatter bottom and squarer section, which increased their capacity.

When Harland died in 1894, William James Pirrie became the chairman of the company until his death in 1924. It was during this period that the company built the RMS Titanic and her sister-ships RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic between 1909 and 1914. These were three of over 70 ships constructed for the White Star Line.

In 1912, the company acquired another shipyard at Govan in Glasgow, Scotland.

[edit] The war years

During World War I, Harland and Wolff built monitors and cruisers, including the 15-inch gun armed "large light cruiser" HMS Glorious.

In 1918, the company opened a new shipyard on the eastern side of the Musgrave Channel which was named the East Yard. This yard specialised in mass-produced ships of standard design developed during the First World War.

The company started an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary with Short Brothers, called Short and Harland Limited in 1936. Its first order was for 189 Handley Page Hereford bombers built under license from Handley Page for the Royal Air Force. During the Second World War, this factory built Short Stirling bombers as the Hereford was removed from service.

A burner operating at night on the deck of a ship at Harland and Wolff's Liverpool yard. (27 October 1944)

The shipyard was busy during World War II, building 6 aircraft carriers, 2 cruisers and 131 other naval ships; and repairing over 22,000 vessels. It also manufactured tanks and artillery components. It was during this period that the company's workforce peaked at around 35,000 people. However, many of the vessels built during this era were commissioned right at the end of World War II, as Harland and Wolff were focused on ship repair during the first three years of the war. The yard on Queen's Island was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe in April and May 1941 causing considerable damage to the shipbuilding facilities and destroying the aircraft factory.

[edit] Post war period and decline

With the rise of the jet powered airliner in the late 1950s, the demand for passenger ships declined; and this coupled with competition from Japan led to difficulties for the British shipbuilding industry. The last one that the company built was the SS Canberra in 1960.

In the mid-1960s the British government started advancing loans and subsidies to British shipyards to preserve jobs. Some of this money was used to finance the modernisation of the yard, allowing it to build the much larger post-war merchant ships including one of 333,000 tonnes. However continuing problems led to the company's nationalisation as part of British Shipbuilders in 1977.

The company was bought from the British government in 1989 in a management/employee buy-out in partnership with the Norwegian shipping magnate Fred Olsen; leading to a new company called Harland and Wolff Holdings Plc. By this time, the number of people employed by the company had fallen to around 3000.

For the next few years, Harland and Wolff specialised in building standard Suezmax oil tankers, and has continued to concentrate on vessels for the offshore oil and gas industry. It has made some forays outside of this market---for example unsuccessfully bidding against Chantiers de L'Atlantique for the construction of Cunard's new Queen Mary 2, and recently completing two roll-on roll-off ships.

With the Shipyard being situated in the mainly Protestant area of East Belfast, for most of its history the workers at Harland and Wolff were almost exclusively Protestant. At certain times, some Catholics working in the shipyard did report discrimination and occasionally violent and threatening behaviour. While there is little concrete proof of this (except in the case of Catholic Maurice O'Kane who was shot by the UVF), some Catholic workers insist on its accuracy. The O'Kane case, while occurring within the shipyard, was not carried out by any of Mr O'Kane's co-workers, and indeed a number of workers from both sides of the divide have claimed that the mainly working class status of the yard's workers united them, regardless of political and religious affiliation.

In the late 1990s the yard was part of the then British Aerospace's team for the Royal Navy's Future Carrier (CVF) programme. It was envisaged that the ship would be constructed in Belfast. However in 1999 BAe merged with Marconi Electronic Systems. The new company, BAE Systems Marine, now own the former Marconi shipyards at Barrow and on the Clyde and will likely construct the ships at one of these.

More recently, faced with competitive pressures (especially as regards shipbuilding), Harland and Wolff have sought to shift and broaden their portfolio, focus less on shipbuilding and more on design and structural engineering, as well as ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for other projects to do with metal engineering and construction. This led to Harland and Wolff constructing a series of bridges in Britain and also in the Republic of Ireland, which some perceived as a historic turnaround, given the company's controversial history.

Harland and Wolff's last ship to date was the MV Anvil Point, one of 6 near identical Ro-Ro freighters built for use by the UK Ministry of Defence. The ship, built under sub-contract from German shipbuilders Flensburger, was launched in 2003. It is British crewed and flagged and is owned and operated Foreland Shipping Ltd (London).

Belfast's skyline is still dominated today by Harland and Wolff's famous twin cranes Samson and Goliath, built in 1974 and 1969 respectively.