The Boys of Bluehill

The White Star Line was founded around 1850. The company managed a line of sailing vessels and was mainly engaged in trade in and around the Australian goldfields. But by the autumn of 1867 the company's debts had grown larger than its revenues and White Star Line was forced into bankruptcy. It was then that shipping businessman Thomas Henry Ismay purchased the White Star Line and eventually made it the centerpiece of his Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (OSNC), which he formed in 1869. The house flag for the Liverpool-based OSNC was the now-familiar flag of the White Star Line, with a solid red background and a five-pointed star in the center. The OSNC was the beginning of Ismay's dream to provide the highest quality of service from the United Kingdom and Europe to the United States and Canada.
       

Thomas Henry Ismay (left) and an emblem of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company (right).

     

Thomas Ismay spent most of his life in robust health, but on November 23, 1899, following several months of illness, Thomas Ismay died. The leadership of the family business eventually passed to his son, Joseph Bruce Ismay.

      

The Northumberland hornpipe "Harvest Home" is another of those nautical tunes that would have been well-known to the shipbuilders and crew of the RMS Titanic.  

       

     
- -

Harvest Home

Her design was approved on July 29, 1908. On March 31 the following year, her keel was laid in a specially-built yard on Queen's Island in Belfast, Ireland. Her life began just fifteen weeks behind her sister, the Olympic. And like her sister, she was built by Harland & Wolff and upon completion would be passed to her owner, the White Star Line. Her name, the RMS Titanic. 

       

In this October 1910 photo the Olympic can be seen on the right in Yard number 400. Titanic can be seen on the left, in Yard number 401. This photo was taken by Robert John Welch (1859-1936), official photographer for Harland & Wolff.

     

The size of the ships was so great that no existing ship yards could hold them. So over 1907 and 1908 three existing Queen's Island yards were torn down and replaced with two new and much larger yards, numbers 400 and 401. Yard number 400 was designated for Olympic and 401 for Titanic.

     

Belfast was a center for shipbuilding and many companies produced their vessels there. The work was very dangerous, but it was expected for the life of a shipbuilder at that time. When one ship was completed, the men would sign-on with another crew and another ship. Harland and Wolff employed 15,000 men at the time of the Olympic and Titanic, and many thousands worked for about 26 months on each of the great ships.

     

The tune "Harvest Home" is an example of the hornpipes that were played on English and other sailing vessels beginning in the 16th or 17th century. This particular tune would have been well-known to the shipbuilders of Queen's Island, as it would have to most western sailors of the day.

      

    

-

- -