Shipbuilding

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries wooden sailing ships were built at various locations around the coast of Ireland, including Belfast Lough. Belfast's first significant shipbuilding firm was established in 1791 by William Ritchie, a shipbuilder from Saltcoats on the west coast of Scotland. After 1850, product and process innovation, with the development of iron and later steel steamships together with scale economies, led to larger establishments and firms and to regional concentration in the shipbuilding industry throughout the United Kingdom. By the late nineteenth century most U.K. merchant tonnage was launched on the River Clyde in Scotland, the northeast coast of England, and the River Lagan in Belfast. The industry in Belfast consisted of two firms: Harland and Wolff and Workman, Clark and Company. In the years from 1906 to1914 they produced 10 percent of the United Kingdom's output and 6 percent of the world's output.

Harland and Wolff was formed in 1861 by Edward Harland, an engineer and shipbuilder from the northeast of England, and Gustav Wolff, an English-trained engineer from Hamburg. The partnership acquired a small yard on Queen's Island, which Harland had started to manage for Robert Hickson in 1854 and then purchased four years later. The Belfast Harbour Commissioners played an important role in the creation of this yard and in the subsequent development of shipbuilding on the River Lagan. Workman, Clark, and Company was formed in 1880 by Frank Workman and George Clark. Both men had served as apprentices with Harland and Wolff. The new company's yards were located mainly on the northern shore of the Lagan.

As with other U.K. firms, close links with shipping-line customers allowed the Belfast firms to maintain a high level of output and hence capacity utilization and also to develop product specialization, thereby enabling them to sustain unit-cost advantages over competitors. Under the leadership of William Pirrie, Harland and Wolff was one of a small number of yards equipped to construct the largest vessels, including the luxury liners Olympic (1911), and Titanic (1912). Workman Clark specialized in medium-sized cargo boats and combined cargo and passenger vessels; the firm pioneered the development of the Parsons turbine engine and the construction of refrigerated meat- and fruit-carrying vessels.

Employment at Harland and Wolff increased from 500 in 1861 to 2,200 in 1871, and from 9,000 in 1900 to 14,000 in 1914. Altogether 20,000 were employed in shipbuilding in Belfast in 1914, and an all-time peak of nearly 30,000 held such jobs in 1919. Belfast did not have a large reserve of skilled labor. Skilled workers from Scotland and England were attracted and retained by offering them a premium on regional rates of pay: markets for skilled labor were interregional. These premiums did not apply to unskilled labor, which was in plentiful local supply. Because of their relative scarcity the skilled shipyard workers had considerable bargaining power and, as in Great Britain, were able to exercise a traditional right to select apprentices for their crafts. This informal labor market meant that recruitment frequently came from within the established local communities, often from within family groups. These employment practices continued into the twentieth century and help to explain the religious mix of the shipyard labor force. Serious sectarian incidents occurred in the shipyards in 1886, when there was a sharp downturn in shipbuilding output and employment, and in 1920, at the beginning of another major downturn for the Belfast yards. Each of these episodes took place at a time of heightened political tension over the national question: In 1886 and 1920 riots occurred during the first Home Rule crisis and as the Anglo-Irish War edged into the north, respectively.

In the 1920s and 1930s U.K. shipbuilders confronted the problems of slow growth in demand for shipping services, excess capacity, and increased foreign competition. Both Belfast firms experienced severe financial difficulties. Harland and Wolff responded by entering the market for oil tankers in the 1920s and diversified in 1936 by entering into partnership with Short Brothers to produce aircraft. Workman Clark did not survive the world depression that began in 1929 and launched its last ship in 1934.

The outbreak of World War II, like the previous world war, caused a boom in output; Harland and Wolff's contribution made the shipyard a target for German bombs in 1941. The long postwar boom saw an increase in demand for oil tankers and bulk carriers. Despite a decline in the U.K. shipbuilding industry's share of world output, tonnage launched by Harland and Wolff reached a historical high in the 1970s. However, the firm was in receipt of government financial support from 1966, and in 1975 the Northern Ireland government became the sole shareholder in the company.

In 1989 Harland and Wolff was returned to the private sector as Harland and Wolff Holdings after a management and employee buyout in partnership with companies associated with the Norwegian shipowner Fred Olsen. Following privatization, the company diversified its product mix to include not just oil tankers and bulk carriers but also offshore production vessels for the oil and gas industry. After further restructuring in the late 1990s the dominant shareholder in the twenty-first century is Fred Olsen Energy. Diversification continues: Recalling the glory days at the start of the twentieth century the company is developing a research and tourism area on Queen's Island called Titanic Quarter. However, its shipbuilding days may have come to an end with the launch on 17 January 2003 of Anvil Point, a roll-on, roll-off ferry built for service with the U.K. Ministry of Defence.

Shipbuilding

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