A BUILDER OF BIG SHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 138, 10 July 1909, Page 4

A BUILDER OF BIG SHIPS.

A CHATTY ARTICLE ABOUT LOUD I I'IRRIE. The career of Lord Pirrie, who has just paid about two hundred thousand pounds for the Lea Park estate ot the notorious Whitaker Wright, would have delighted the heart of tne late Samuel Smiles (says an exchange). He was bom in Canada, but he wits stilf in long clothes when he was brought to Ireland, and here he 'spent his boyhood. At the age of fifteen it was decided that he must leave school and enter some sort of business life. Young Pirrie was fired with the ambition to dp a shipbuilder, and ta was accordingly apprenticed to the hrin of Harland ami Wolff. AMBITIOUS AND EXERtiETIO. |

At tnat time the firm, since grown famous, was quite a sma.l concern. The yard was situated in the neighborhood of what was known as tlie Queen's Island, which at tlie time was a sort of holiday ground. Now there is not a leui nor a tree nor a blade of grass on Uie whole ot the island, 'ihe entire aiea has become a hive of industry.

From the very first young Pirrie was determined to get on. He engaged lodgings as close to the works as ue could und them, and he was the lirst to arrive at business in tlie morning and tile iasi ho ;eave at night. His employers were so immensely; impressed by his energy that about twelve years after he firsi entered the works he was made a partner in the firm—a record of promotioa of which lie may well be proud. Certainly Sir E. J. Harland and My. Wolff never had reason to regret their step, for the new partner had a perfect genius for shipbuilding, and the under- j taking advanced by leaps and bounds. He was not content to stay at home and conduct affairs from his' office; lie rushed about from port to port in Europe and America, till he knew everything and everybody in the shipbuilding world. As a consequence, he soon became a recognised authority, a man it would be madness to contradict.

Lord Pirrie. is really the man who "invented" the modern ocean liner with. its enormous dimensions and luxurious equipment, for it was he who built the first leviathan, the Teutonic, for. the White Star Line. Then came the Oceanic, the first vessel to surpass the dimensions of that famous "white elephant" of the shipping world, the Great Eastern.

The Cedric, the Celtic, the Baltic, whe Adriatic—one after another the.stately ships, every one bigger than its predecessor, have glided from Lord Pirrie's slips out into the Atlantic. One may 'safely talk of them- as "Lord Pirrie's dips," for he is now chairman and controller of the firm.

At the present moment he is building for the White Star Line two stupendous steamers which, in point of size, will eclipse every other vessel afloat, while the innovations devised for the comfort of the passengers will come as a revelation. The vessels' will probably be called the Olympic and the Titanic, and when they take the water they will each represent an outlay of a million and a-half sterling. BOYCOTTED BY BROTHER KNIGHTS A few years ago King Edward conferred on him a peerage, and no man has deserved it more. Still more recently another coveted honor was bestowed on him when he was made a Knight of the Order of St. Patrick. TbJ6 latter honor brought about a remarkable exhibition of snobbishness on the part of the other Knights of St. 'Patrick, who complained, in effect, that Lord Pirrie was "a man of no family." So many of them boycotted the investiture that the ceremonial had to be postponed, and in the end Lord Aberdeen ignored the dissatisfied Knights and invested Lord iPirrie in private.

There is an amusing story told as evidence of his energy and determination in business. On the afternoon of one of his visits to Liverpool the head of a large shipping firm was'seen wandering about the Exchange showing all the outward sigus of a man sorely perplexed. Someone asked him what the trouble was.

"Well, the fact is," he explained gloomily, "Pirrie has been over here and he has ipersuaded me to order a ship. But Pm bothered if I kuow what I shall do with it!"