SHIPBUILDING IN BELFAST--ITS ORIGIN AND PROGRESS.
BY SIR E. J. HARLAND, ENGINEER AND SHIPBUILDER.
"The useful arts are but reproductions or new combinations by the art of man, of the same natural benefactors. He no longer waits for favouring gales, but by means of steam he realises the fable of AEolus's bag, and carries the two-and-thirty winds in the boiler of his boat."--Emerson.
"The most exquisite and the most expensive machinery is brought into play where operations on the most common materials are to be performed, because these are executed on the widest scale. This is the meaning of the vast and astonishing prevalence of machine work in this country: that the machine, with its million fingers, works for millions of purchasers, while in remote countries, where magnificence and savagery stand side by side, tens of thousands work for one. There Art labours for the rich alone;here she works for the poor no less. There the multitude produce only to give splendour and grace to the despot or the warrior, whose slaves they are, and whom they enrich; here the man who is powerful in the weapons of peace, capital, and machinery, uses them to give comfort and enjoyment to the public, whose servant he is, and thus becomes rich while he enriches others with his goods."--William Whewell, D.D.
I was born at Scarborough in May, 1831, the sixth of a family of eight. My father was a native of Rosedale, half-way between Whitby and Pickering: his nurse was the sister of Captain Scoresby, celebrated as an Arctic explorer. Arrived at manhood, he studied medicine, graduated at Edinburgh, and practised in Scarborough until nearly his death in 1866. He was thrice Mayor and a Justice of the Peace for the borough. Dr. Harland was a man of much force of character, and displayed great originality in the treatment of disease. Besides exercising skill in his profession, he had a great love for mechanical pursuits. He spent his leisure time in inventions of many sorts; and, in conjunction with the late Sir George Cayley of Brompton, he kept an excellent mechanic constantly at work.
In 1827 he invented and patented a steam-carriage for running on common roads. Before the adoption of railways, the old stage coaches were found slow and insufficient for the traffic. Aworking model of the steam-coach was perfected, embracing a multitubular boiler for quickly raising high-pressure steam, with a revolving surface condenser for reducing the steam to water again, by means of its exposure to the cold draught of the atmosphere through the interstices of extremely thin laminations of copper plates. The entire machinery, placed under the bottom of the carriage, was borne on springs; the whole being of an elegant form. This model steam-carriage ascended with perfect ease the steepest roads. Its success was so complete that Dr.
Harland designed a full-sized carriage; but the demands upon his professional skill were so great that he was prevented going further than constructing the pair of engines, the wheels, and a part of the boiler,--all of which remnants I still preserve, as valuable links in the progress of steam locomotion.
Other branches of practical science--such as electricity, magnetism, and chemical cultivation of the soil--received a share of his attention. He predicted that three or four powerful electric lamps would yet light a whole city. He was also convinced of the feasibility of an electric cable to New York, and calculated the probable cost. As an example to the neighbourhood, he successfully cultivated a tract of moorland, and overcame difficulties which before then were thought insurmountable.
When passing through Newcastle, while still a young man, on one of his journeys to the University at Edinburgh, and being desirous of witnessing the operations in a coal-mine, a friend recommended him to visit Killingworth pit, where he would find one George Stephenson, a most intelligent workman, in charge. My father was introduced to Mr. Stephenson accordingly; and after rambling over the underground workings, and observing the pumping and winding engines in full operation, a friendship was made, which afterwards proved of the greatest service to myself, by facilitating my being placed as a pupil at the great engineering works of Messrs. Robert Stephenson and Co., at Newcastle.
My mother was the daughter of Gawan Pierson, a landed proprietor of Goathland, near Rosedale. She, too, was surprisingly mechanical in her tastes; and assisted my father in preparing many of his plans, besides attaining considerable proficiency in drawing, painting, and modelling in wax. Toys in those days were poor, as well as very expensive to purchase. But the nursery soon became a little workshop under her directions; and the boys were usually engaged, one in making a cart, another in carving out a horse, and a third in cutting out a boat; while the girls were making harness, or sewing sails, or cutting out and making perfect dresses for their dolls--whose houses were completely furnished with everything, from the kitchen to the attic, all made at home.
It was in a house of such industry and mechanism that I was brought up. As a youth, I was slow at my lessons; preferring to watch and assist workmen when I had an opportunity of doing so, even with the certainty of having a thrashing from the schoolmaster for my neglect. Thus I got to know every workshop and every workman in the town. At any rate I picked up a smattering of a variety of trades, which afterwards proved of the greatest use to me. The chief of these was wooden shipbuilding, a branch of industry then extensively carried on by Messrs.
