So much impressed was the firm with Tom's industry and capacity that,
soon after the time of his entering the Drawing Office in November,
1892, he was entrusted with the discharge of responsible duties. It is
on record that in February, 1893, he was given the supervision of
construction work on the _Mystic_; that in November of the same year he
represented the firm, to its entire satisfaction and his own credit, on
the trials of the White Star Liner _Gothic_; whilst, immediately
following the end of his apprenticeship in May, 1894, he helped the
Shipyard Manager to examine the _Coptic_, went to Liverpool and reported
on the damage done to the _Lycia_, and in November discussed with the
General Manager and Shipyard Manager the Notes in connection with the
renovation of the _Germanic_--that famous Liner, still capable after
twenty-five years on the Atlantic Service of making record passages, but
now crippled through being overladen with ice at New York.
In 1894 he was twenty-one years old: a man and well launched on his
great career.
It is not necessary, and scarcely possible, to follow Andrews with any
closeness as rapidly, step by step, he climbed the ladder already
scaled, with such amazing success, by Mr. Pirrie. The record of his
career is written in the wonderful story of the Queen's Island Yard
through all its developments onward from 1894, and in the story of the
many famous ships repaired and built during the period.
The remarkable engineering feat of lengthening the _Scot_ and the
_Augusta Victoria_, by dividing the vessels and inserting a section
amidships; the reconstruction of the _China_ after its disaster at Perim
and of the _Paris_ following its wreck on the Manacles: in these
operations, covering roughly the years 1896-1900, Andrews, first as an
outside Manager and subsequently as Head of the Repair department, took
a distinguished part. He was growing, widening knowledge, maturing
capacity, and both by the Staff, and by those in touch with the Yard, he
became recognised as what the watching crowd terms, not unhappily, a
coming man.
Having made his mark in the Repair Department, Andrews was next to prove
himself on construction work. Prior to the launch of the _Oceanic_ in
1899, and whilst engaged in the reconstruction operations already
mentioned, he had also rendered good service at the building of ships
for many of the great steamship lines; but it was perhaps with the
building of the _Celtic_ (1899-1901), when he became Manager of
Construction Work, that the path of his career took him swiftly up into
prominence. The duty of supervising all the structural details of the
vessel brought him into close practical touch with the Drawing office,
the Moulding loft, the Platers' shops, and all the other Departments
through which he had passed as an apprentice; imposed upon his young
shoulders great responsibilities; tested his capacity for handling men;
put him in constant and intimate view of his employers; widened his
relations with owners, contractors, directors, managers; opened to him
not only the life of the Yard, but the vast outer life of the Shipping
and Commercial world, and in a hundred other respects helped towards his
development as a shipbuilder and a man. Now he had opportunity to apply
his knowledge and experience, to express in tangible form his genius.
The great ship rising there below the gantries to the accompaniment of
such clang and turmoil--she was his, part of him. To the task, one of the
noblest surely done by men, he gave himself unsparingly, every bit of
him, might and main: and his success, great as it was, had the greater
acclaim because in achieving it he worked not for personal success but
for success in his work. That was the man's way. His job, first and last
and always.
The names alone of all the ships in whose building Andrews had a hand,
more or less, as Designer, Constructor, Supervisor and Adviser, would
fill this page. The _Cedric_, the _Baltic_, the _Adriatic_, the
_Oceanic_, the _Amerika_, the _President Lincoln_ and _President Grant_,
the _Nieuw Amsterdam_, the _Rotterdam_, the _Lapland_ (of which recently
we have heard so much): those are a few of them. The _Olympic_ and the
_Titanic_: those are two more. Their names are as familiar to us as
those of our friends. We have, some of us, seen the great ships on whose
bows they are inscribed, perhaps sailed in them, or watched anxiously
for their arrival at some port of the world; well, wherever they sail
now, or lie, they have upon them the impress of Tom Andrews' hand and
brain, and with one of them, the last and finest of all, he himself
gloriously perished.
There are many others, less known perhaps, but carrying the flag no less
proudly upon the Seven seas, for whose design and construction Andrews
was in some measure, often in great measure responsible: the _Aragon_,
the _Amazon_, the _Avon_, the _Asturias_, the _Arlanza_, the
_Herefordshire_, the _Leicestershire_, the _Gloucestershire_, the
_Oxfordshire_, the _Pericles_, the _Themistocles_, the _Demosthenes_,
the _Laurentic_, the _Megantic_, and the rest. It is a splendid record.
Lord Pirrie may well be proud of it, and Ulster too: both we know are
proud of the man who so devotedly helped to make it.
The work of building all those ships, and so many more, from the
_Celtic_ to the _Titanic_, covered a period of some thirteen years,
1899-1912, and in that period Andrews gained such advancement as his
services to the Firm deserved. In 1904 he became Assistant Chief
Designer, and in the year following was promoted to be Head of the
Designing department under Lord Pirrie. His age then was thirty-two, an
age at which most men are beginning their career; but he already had
behind him what may seem the work and experience of a strenuous
lifetime.
"When first I knew Mr. Andrews," writes one who knew him intimately, and
later was closely associated with him in his work, "he was a young man,
but young as he was to him were entrusted the most important and
responsible duties--the direct supervision of constructing the largest
ships built in the Yard from the laying of their keels until their
sailing from Belfast. Such a training eminently fitted him for the
important position to which he succeeded in 1905, that of Chief of the
Designing department. For one so young the position involved duties that
taxed him to the full. To superintend the construction of ships like the
_Baltic_ and _Oceanic_ was a great achievement, but at the age of
thirty-two to be Chief of a department designing leviathans like the
_Olympic_ was a greater one still. How well he rose to the call everyone
knows. No task was too heavy, and none too light, for him to grapple
with successfully. He seemed endowed with boundless energy, and his
interest in his work was unceasing."
Others who knew him well during this important period of his career
testify in the like manner.
"Diligent to the point of strenuousness," wrote one of them, "thinking
whilst others slept, reading while others played, through sheer toil and
ability he made for himself a position that few of his years attain";
and then the writer, whose ideal of life is character, notes approvingly
and justly that Andrews worked not as a hireling, but in the spirit of
an artist whose work must satisfy his own exacting conscience.
Those boundless energies soon were given wider scope. Early in 1907 the
_Adriatic_ was finished, and in March of that same year he was made a
Managing Director of the Firm, the Right Hon. A. M. Carlisle being at
this time Chairman of the Board. Everyone knows, or can judge for
himself, what were the duties of this new position--this additional
position, rather, for he still remained Chief of the Designing
department--and what, in such a huge and complicated concern as the
Island works, the duties involved. Briefly we may summarise them.
A knowledge of its fifty-three branches equal to that of any of the
fifty-three men in charge of them; the supervising these, combining and
managing them so that all might, smoothly and efficiently, work to the
one great end assigned, the keeping abreast with the latest devices in
labour-saving appliances, with the newest means of securing economical
fitness, with the most modern discoveries in electrical, mechanical and
marine engineering--in short, everything relative to the construction and
equipment of modern steamships; and in addition all the numerous and
delicate duties devolving upon him as Lord Pirrie's Assistant.
Furthermore, the many voyages of discovery, so to speak, which he made
as representative of the Firm, thereby, we are told by one with whom he
sailed often, "gaining a knowledge of sea life and the art of working a
ship unequalled in my experience by anyone not by profession a
seafarer"; and, lastly, his many inspections of, and elaborate reports
upon, ships and business works, together with his survey, at Lord
Pirrie's instance, of the Harbours of Ireland, Canada, Germany, and
elsewhere.
It seems a giant's task. Even to us poor humdrum mortals, toiling meanly
on office stools at our twopenny enterprises, it seems more than a
giant's task. Yet Andrews shouldered it, unweariedly, cheerily,
joyfully, for pure love of the task.
One sees him, big and strong, a paint-smeared bowler hat on his crown,
grease on his boots and the pockets of his blue jacket stuffed with
plans, making his daily round of the Yards, now consulting his Chief,
now conferring with a foreman, now interviewing an owner, now poring
over intricate calculations in the Drawing office, now in company with
his warm friend, old schoolfellow, and co-director, Mr. George Cumming
of the Engineering department, superintending the hoisting of a boiler
by the two hundred ton crane into some newly launched ship by a wharf.
Or he runs amok through a gang--to their admiration, be it said--found
heating their tea-cans before horn-blow; or comes unawares upon a party
enjoying a stolen smoke below a tunnel-shaft, and, having spoken his
mind forcibly, accepts with a smile the dismayed sentinel's excuse that
"'twasn't fair to catch him by coming like that into the tunnel instead
of by the way he was expected." Or he kicks a red hot rivet, which has
fallen fifty feet from an upper deck, missing his head by inches, and
strides on laughing at his escape. Or he calls some laggard to stern
account, promising him the gate double quick without any talk next time.
Or he lends a ready hand to one in difficulties; or just in time saves
another from falling down a hold; or saying that married men's lives are
precious, orders back a third from some dangerous place and himself
takes the risk. Or he runs into the Drawing office with a hospital note
and a gift of flowers and fruit for the sick wife of a draughtsman. Or
at horn-blow he stands by a ship's gangway, down which four thousand
hungry men, with a ninety feet drop below them, are rushing for home
and supper, and with voice and eye controls them ... a guard rope breaks
... another instant and there may be grim panic on the gangway ... but
his great voice rings out, "Stand back, men," and he holds them as in a
leash until the rope is made good again.
All in the day's work, those and a thousand other incidents which men
treasure to-day in the Island, and, if you are tactful, will reveal to
you in their slow laconic Northern way. He has been in the Yard perhaps
since four or five o'clock--since six for a certainty. At seven or so he
will trudge home, or ride in a tramcar with the other workers, to sit
over his plans or his books well into the night.
One recalls a day, not long ago, spent most of it in tramping over the
Island Works, guided by two men who had worked for many years with
Andrews and who, like others we saw and thousands we did not see, held
his memory almost in reverence. In and out, up and down we went, through
heat and rain, over cobble stones and tram lines; now stepping on planks
right down the double bottom, three hundred yards long, from which was
soon to rise the _Titanic's_ successor; now crouching amongst the shores
sustaining the huge bulk of another half-plated giant; now passing in
silent wonder along the huge cradles and ways above which another
monster stood ready for launching. Then into shop after shop in endless
succession, each needing a day's journey to traverse, each wonderfully
clean and ordered, and all full of wonders. Boilers as tall as houses,
shafts a boy's height in diameter, enormous propellers hanging like some
monstrous sea animal in chains, turbine motors on which workmen
clambered as upon a cliff, huge lathes, pneumatic hammers, and quiet
slow-moving machines that dealt with cold steel, shearing it, punching
it, planing it, as if it had been so much dinner cheese. Then up into
the Moulding Loft, large enough for a football ground, and its floor a
beautiful maze of frame lines; on through the Joiners' shops, with their
tools that can do everything but speak; through the Smiths' shops, with
their long rows of helmet-capped hearths, and on into the great airy
building, so full of interest that one could linger in it for a week,
where an army of Cabinetmakers are fashioning all kinds of ship's
furniture. Then across into the Central power station, daily generating
enough electricity to light Belfast. On through the fine arched Drawing
hall, where the spirit of Tom Andrews seemed still to linger, and
into his office where often he sat drafting those reports, so
exhaustively minute, so methodical and neatly penned, which now have
such pathetic and revealing interest. Lastly, after such long
journeying, out to a wharf and over a great ship, full of stir and
clamour, and as thronged with workmen as soon it would be with
passengers.
[Illustration: THE TURNING SHOP]
And often, as one went, hour after hour, one kept asking, "Had Mr.
Andrews knowledge of this, and this, and that?"
"Yes, of everything--he knew everything," would be the patient answer.
"And could he do this, and this, and this?" one kept on.
"He could do anything," would be the answer.
"Even how to drive an engine?"
"Surely."
"And how to rivet a plate?"
"He could have built a ship himself, and fitted her--yes, and sailed her
too"--was the answer we got; and then as one dragged wearily towards the
gateway (outside which, you will remember, young Tom waited one bitter
morning, disappointed but staunch) the guide, noting one's plight, said,
"You will sleep well to-night?"
Why, yes, one felt like sleeping for a week!
"Ah, well," was the quiet comment, "Mr. Andrews would do all that and
more three times maybe every day."
All in the day's work, you see. And when it was done, then home in a
tramcar, to have his dinner, a talk with his mother over the telephone,
and so to work again until eleven.
In 1901 Andrews became a Member of the Institution of Naval Architects,
and in the year following a Member of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers. He was also a Member of the Society of Naval Architects and
Marine Engineers (New York), and an Honorary Member of the Belfast
Association of Engineers.
In 1908 he made a home for himself at Dunallan, Windsor Avenue, Belfast,
marrying, on June 24th, Helen Reilly, younger daughter of the late John
Doherty Barbour, of Conway, Dunmurry, County Antrim, D.L.--worthiest and
most loyal of helpmates.
Concerning his married life, so woefully restricted in point of years as
it was rich in bounty of happiness, it is perhaps sufficient to say here
that, just before he sailed from Southampton, in April last, on that
final tragic voyage, he made occasion, one evening whilst talking with
a friend, to contrast his own lot with the lot of some husbands he knew;
saying, amongst other things, that in the whole time since his marriage,
no matter how often he had been away or how late he had stayed at the
Yard, never had Mrs. Andrews made a complaint.
She would not. With Jane Eyre she could say, "I am my husband's life as
fully as he is mine."
In 1910 a child was born to them and named Elizabeth Law Barbour.