Harland & Wolff, the
Belfast shipbuilding firm, was formed in 1861 by Edward James
Harland and Gustav Wilhelm
Wolff.
From 1905 to 1913 inclusive Harland & Wolff's launchings placed it in the top five UK firms on seven occasions. As with other UK shipbuilding firms, growth was facilitated by linkages, both formal and informal, between shipbuilders and shipping lines. These linkages enabled a considerable degree of product specialization and a high level of output to be maintained. The former resulted in Harland & Wolff being one of a small number of yards equipped to construct the largest vessels, and the latter helped the firm to sustain unit cost advantages over competitors. Under the chairmanship of William
Pirrie, these linkages culminated in Harland & Wolff's participation in 1902 in J. P. Morgan's International Mercantile Marine, which sought (and failed) to corner a dominant share of the lucrative market for North Atlantic shipping services. By 1914 Harland & Wolff had also forged links with the Sheffield steel firm of John Brown, and extended its shipbuilding and repair operations to the Clyde, Liverpool, and Southampton.
In the inter‐war years all UK shipbuilding firms confronted the problems of excess world capacity and growing foreign competition. Following Pirrie's death in 1924 the firm experienced severe financial difficulties under its new chairman, Lord Kylsant of the Royal Mail shipping group. In 1930 the company was placed under the control of trustees for its creditors. Despite these difficulties the firm maintained its share of UK launchings, though the latter declined as a proportion of world tonnage launched. In these years Harland & Wolff entered the market for oil tankers and diversified by entering into partnership in 1936 with
Short Brothers to produce aircraft.
In the
Second World War, as in the First, the firm benefited from admiralty orders for warships. Its financial position improved and by 1945 the creditors' trustees had been stood down. From the late 1940s to the mid‐1970s world output rose almost continuously, driven by a boom in the construction of oil‐tankers and bulk carriers. While output on the Lagan increased relative to that of the UK it fell as a proportion of world output. Tonnage launched by Harland & Wolff reached a historical high in the 1970s with the new capital‐intensive production of oil tankers and bulk carriers.
Unfortunately the firm had re‐equipped and modernized its yards too late to take full advantage of the boom. Losses were sustained from 1964 onwards and the firm was in receipt of government financial support from 1966. In 1975 the Northern Ireland government became the sole shareholder in the company and continued to give financial support. In 1989 Harland & Wolff was privatized through a management and employee buyout. Since then the company has survived by diversifying its product mix and catering for specialist markets, such as offshore production vessels for the oil industry.
Bibliography
Geary, F., and and Johnson, W. , ‘Shipbuilding in Belfast, 1861–1986’, Irish Economic and Social History, 16 (1989)
Moss, M., and and Hume, J. R. , Shipbuilders to the World: 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast 1961–1986 (1986)
FG/ and Frank Geary
