Edward Harland

Sir Edward James Harland, 1st Baronet was a British shipbuilder and politician. Born in Scarborough, North 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 Hicksons shipyard at Queens 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 Harlands retirement in 1889, leaving Wolff and Pirrie to manage the shipyard.

Edward James Harland was born onMay 1831 in Newborough, a neighbourhood within Scarborough, North Yorkshire to Dr. William Harland and his wife Anne, the daughter of Gowan Pierson who was from Goathland, Yorkshire. Harlands birthplace is now the site of a Marks amp Spencer store. Edward was the seventh child of ten, and the fourth boy of six. His antecedent brother died as an infant Edward Harland is described as the sixth child in the family by alternative sources. Dr. Harland was a physician and an amateur engineer he invented a patented steam powered carriage in 1827.

Source: Wikipedia