William James Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie (31 May 1847 – 7 June 1924) was a leading British shipbuilder and businessman. He was chairman of Harland & Wolff, shipbuilders, between 1895 and 1924, and also served as Lord Mayor of Belfast between 1896 and 1898. He was ennobled as Baron Pirrie in 1906, appointed a Knight of the Order of St Patrick in 1908 and made Viscount Pirrie in 1921. Lord Pirrie was involved in the building of the Olympic-class ocean liners, along with his nephew Thomas Andrews. In Belfast, he was already a controversial figure: a Protestant employer associated as a leading Liberal with a policy of Home Rule for Ireland.
Contents
Background
Pirrie was born in Quebec City, Canada East. He was taken back to Ireland when he was two years old and spent his childhood at Conlig House, aka Little Clandeboye Conlig, County Down. Belonging to a prominent family, his nephews included J. M. Andrews, who would later become Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Thomas Andrews, who succeeded Pirrie as managing director, and Sir James Andrews, 1st Baronet, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.
Career
Pirrie was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution before entering Harland and Wolff shipyard as a gentleman apprentice in 1862. Twelve years later he was made a partner in the firm, and on the death of Sir Edward Harland in 1895 he became its chairman, a position he was to hold until his death. As well as overseeing the world's largest shipyard, Pirrie was elected Lord Mayor of Belfast in 1896, and was re-elected to the office as well as made an Irish Privy Counsellor the following year. He became Belfast's first honorary freeman in 1898, and served in the same year as High Sheriff of Antrim and subsequently of County Down. In February 1900, he was elected President of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom, where he had been vice-president the previous year. He helped finance the Liberals in Ulster in the 1906 general election, and that same year, at the height of Harland and Wolff's success, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Pirrie, of the City of Belfast.