Hidden History: Harland & Wolff Ship Plans Archive Fully Accessible for first time

National Museums NI has today announced it has made the Harland & Wolff Ship Plans Archive accessible to the public for the first time. 

Now housed in the new Cultra Collections Store located at the Ulster Folk Museum, the Harland & Wolff archive encompasses a variety of ship plans detailing the construction of ships that were built by the Belfast-based shipyard for over a century. Among the hundreds of thousands of plans within the archive are those of the most famous ship in the world, Titanic, as well as those of her sister ships, Olympic and Britannic.

More plans for the Olympic-class liners have recently been discovered within the archive, along with plans for Damson Hill, the last four-masted sailing vessel built in 1892, and a large amount of material for Harland & Wolff’s last passenger ship, Canberra, launched in 1960. The archive contains a substantial collection of ephemera associated with H&W such as ledgers, blueprints, notes, internal memos – even a marriage proposal. Each item provides an insight into the skill and labour required to build one of these magnificent ships, and the legacy it created for Northern Ireland in innovation.

The archive serves to reveal the lesser-known stories of Harland & Wolff too, a business that also built tanks, bridges and tin churches, had an aeronautical division, and has employed thousands of workers throughout its 165-year history. 

With funding from the Archives Revealed grant programme, a major project to catalogue the vast repository entitled ‘From Drawing Board to Slipway’ is underway. Archives Revealed is a funding partnership between The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Archives.

As project Archivist Siobhan McLaughlin explains, National Museums NI is now able to bring renewed momentum to the archive and unlock its potential as a heritage asset. 

She said, “From Drawing Board to Slipway will unlock the hidden histories of Belfast’s heritage in shipbuilding. The public will have an unprecedented opportunity to experience incredible stories of design innovation from this vast repository of maritime history and a shipbuilding goliath who designed and built some of the world’s largest, most luxurious, and most iconic ships. Cataloguing this archive will be a major body of work, but a worthwhile process which will make it more accessible through digital platforms, educational resources and ongoing community engagement.”

William Blair, Director of Collections at National Museums NI said the ‘From Drawing Board to Slipway’ project further demonstrates the organisation’s commitment to increasing access to its collections. 

He explained, “Public interest in this archive has remained high for decades now. However, due to the scale of the archive, the large format of the plans and limited resources, we were unable to facilitate demand with access restricted to academics and independent researchers. This project, however, shows how working with partners can broaden engagement and demonstrates our enhanced commitment to making our collections accessible to a wider audience than ever before.”

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The ship plans are just one part of the Harland & Wolff story at National Museums NI – the H&W photographic collection spans around 75,000 images of the shipyard, many of which were taken by Robert Welch, the company photographer. 

The ship plans archive and photographic collection are further complemented by the Paul Louden-Brown White Star Line collection of over 7,000 items illustrating the context of Titanic through the White Star Line company. 

Through all of these collections the public will have the opportunity to connect with Belfast’s heritage in shipbuilding and gain an in-depth understanding of the stages of the shipbuilding process and the working life of the people involved, and how it has shaped not just ships but communities.

Donal McAnallen, Library & Archives Manager at National Museums NI said, “National Museums NI is the custodian of an internationally significant, multi-disciplinary archival collection. Whilst our collection is vast, it’s incredibly important that we catalogue as much as we can to preserve the value of these items and allow people to explore, engage and learn from these significant heritage assets. Without the commitment to this extensive archive, much of the hidden stories of Harland & Wolff may never have been told, or worse, may have been lost forever.”

Harland & Wolff was established in 1861 through the partnership of Edward James Harland and Gustav Wolff and has remained at the forefront of maritime engineering for almost two centuries. In Belfast, it operates one of the largest dry docks in Europe as well as one of only three shipyards in the UK large enough to undertake complex defence projects. 

Alan Haley, Director of Operations at Navantia UK Harland & Wolff, said: “This terrific project cataloguing Harland & Wolff’s history couldn’t come at a better time. It’s happening just as the shipyard is being revitalised, with a huge contract underway to build three Fleet Solid Support ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary – the first ships to be built at the Belfast shipyard for a generation.

“Under new ownership, Harland & Wolff is undergoing modernisation to make it one of the most advanced shipyards in Europe. We’re immensely proud of the shipyard’s heritage and importance to Northern Ireland and we’re determined to add to this archive by building many more ships for the future.”

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