243 



Character Sketch. 



LORD. PIRRIE. 



I am happy in thinking that merit ii becoming more and more the only determining factor in life. 

 invitation to the youth of the world is " Go in and win ! " — Lord Pirkie. 



So that to-day the 



LORD PIRRIE has never been in the House of 

 Commons. He has never (till now) taken an active 

 part in the political strife at Westminster. 

 Hence he is less familiar as a personality to the British 

 public than scores of far less famous men. For Lord 

 Pirrie is a famous 

 man, one of the most 

 famous of his day 

 and generation. He 

 is the greatest sh^- 

 builder whom the 

 world has ever seen. 

 He has built more 

 ships and bigger ships 

 than any man since 

 the days of Noah. 

 And he not only 

 builds ships, but he 

 owns them, directs 

 them, controls them 

 on all the seas of all 

 the world. 



Lord Pirrie was 

 not bom with a 

 goldfen spoon in his 

 mouth. Nor even a 

 silver one. Like Mr. 

 Carnegie, he was born 

 poor as regards 

 worldly goods. He 

 never went to college. 

 When he was fifteen 

 years old he began his 

 life's work. " \'ou 

 have your own way 

 to make," .said his 

 mother to him ; " it 

 depends on your own 

 exertions whether 

 you succeed or not." 

 He has succeeded. 



It is an irfleresting 

 fact that, like Mr. 

 JJonar Law, tlvc 

 Leader of the 



Unionist party in the House of Crimmons, Lord 

 Pirrie was born in Canada. But although cradled 

 in Canada, he came back a.s an infant lo the 

 land of his parents. liolh lost their father in 

 Canada. Although one wa.s of .Scotch and the 

 other of Irish descent, both belong to the >ame 

 stock w hich was welded into w rought - iron 



his widowed mother, leaving 

 in Canada, decided to return 



John Kno.x, the Shorter Catechism, and the Book of 

 Proverbs. 

 W. J. Pirrie was but a wee orphan laddie when 



her husband's grave 

 to the land of her 

 fathers. 



James Ale.xander 

 Pirrie was a native 

 of Little Clandeboye, 

 in County Down. He 

 had married Eliza 

 Montgomery, of Dun- 

 desart, in County 

 Antrim, and had 

 crossed the Atlantic 

 in the forties to better 

 himself in the New 

 \\'orkl. Their only 

 son, now Lord Pirrie, 

 was born in Quebec, 

 May 31st, 1847. His 

 mother brought him 

 back to Belfast, and 

 gave to him the best 

 education attain- 

 able. He went to 

 school at the Royal 

 Academical Institu- 

 tion. He was a lively 

 boy who stuck to his 

 books and showed 

 a certain genius for 

 mathematics. In 1862, 

 when he was fifteen, 

 he pleaded to be al- 

 lowed to leave school 

 and enter as a pre- 

 mium apprentice the 

 works of which he is 

 now the head. Four 

 years before a small 

 firm of shipbuilders 

 had started work in 

 the premises formerly 

 used as an ironworks. 

 In i8^2 they were employing a hundred men. The 

 era of iron shipbuilding had In'gtm. Palmer was 

 making the Tyne famous, i)ut the Clyde was then 

 easily first in the fiild. Neither Tyne nor Clyde 

 dreamed that the lad who was taking his scat 

 in the draughting dcparlnienl of a small Melfast 

 by shipbuilding firm would make the North of Ireland 



An Excellent Portrait of Lord Pirrie. 



