Edward Harland

Sir Edward James Harland, 1st Baronet (15 May 1831 – 24 December 1895), was an English shipbuilder and politician. Born in Scarborough in the North Riding of Yorkshire, he was educated at Edinburgh Academy. In 1846, aged 15, he took an apprenticeship at the engineering works of Robert Stephenson and Company in Newcastle upon Tyne. Afterwards he was employed in jobs in Glasgow and again in Newcastle, before moving to Belfast in 1854 to manage Robert Hickson's shipyard at Queen's Island. Four years later he bought the yard and renamed the business Edward James Harland and Company. In 1861 he formed a business partnership with Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, his former personal assistant, creating Harland and Wolff. Later, Harland recruited William James Pirrie as another partner. Edward Harland, Gustav Wolff and William James Pirrie maintained a successful business, receiving regular orders from the White Star Line, before Harland's retirement in 1889, leaving Wolff and Pirrie to manage the shipyard.

Outside his company, Harland served as a Belfast harbour commissioner. In 1885, Harland was granted a knighthood and a baronetcy. Harland was a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party, and served as Mayor of Belfast; later he moved to London and served as Member of Parliament for Belfast North until his death.

Early life

Edward James Harland was born on 15 May 1831 in Newborough, a neighbourhood within Scarborough in what was then the North Riding of Yorkshire, to Dr. William Harland and his wife Anne, the daughter of Gowan Pierson who was from Goathland, Yorkshire. Harland's birthplace is now the site of a Marks & Spencer store. Edward was the seventh child of ten, and the fourth boy of six. Dr. Harland was a physician In 1846, aged 15, he went to Newcastle upon Tyne to serve an apprenticeship at Robert Stephenson and Company, the locomotive engineer, of whom Edward Harland's father was a friend. During the apprenticeship, Harland met Gustav Christian Schwabe, and was employed as manager of Robert Hickson's shipyard in Queen's Island. But on 21 September 1858, Harland purchased the business and on 1 November 1858, Edward James Harland and Company was created. Harland's company received orders during the American Civil War from the Confederate States of America, who bought fast steamers to evade the Union blockade. In 1874 Edward Harland recruited William James Pirrie, a former apprentice at the company as a partner; in 1871 for "improvements in apparatus for propelling vessels", in 1878 for "improvements in screw-propellers." In 1880 Harland and his two partners decided to expand further and built their own engine works. Harland was a Presbyterian and a member of the Church in Rosemary Street, Belfast. In 1889 Harland was elected to serve as the Member of Parliament for Belfast North. He was appointed to a Royal Commission on industrial disputes in 1891. Harland then moved to London, and was re-elected unopposed twice in 1892 and 1895 and served as MP for the constituency until his death, on Christmas Eve 1895, at his Irish home, Glenfarne Hall in Glenfarne, County Leitrim. Harland left no heir to his baronetcy.

He was the great-uncle of Air Marshal Sir Reginald Harland.