8 Alec Wilson on 



ground in Liverpool. The reason they were refused was because 

 they both seemed too young to take so much responsibility. 

 Liverpool's loss has been Belfast's great gain. 



Harland's very first contract was a remarkable one. The 

 Bibby Line, of Liveri)ool, ])laced three ships with him, each 

 270 ft. long, large boats for those days, always excepting the 

 " Great Eastern " just mentioned. These boats were verita])le 

 pioneers of a new type of ship, a type which has since swept the 

 field in the mercantile marine. Harland's first hull was a 

 long, narrow, square-bottomed steamer, sharply contrasting 

 with the relatively short, broad, round-bottomed boats of 

 those days. Thus the idea of flat-bottomed steamships 

 (known for many years as Belfast bottoms ") with a length 

 exceeding nine, or even ten times their breadth, was actually 

 embodied in the first l)oat Jlarland ever put into the water. 

 Among all the subsequent inventions which hailed from the 

 Island, it may fairly be doul)ted if any one of them was so 

 important as this, the first. And great was the sensation these 

 boats made along the waterside at Liverpool, when they made their 

 appearance. " Bib1)y's coffins " was the nickname by which they 

 went ainong the old salts ; Ijut they were not long in proving 

 themselves a great success. And, later on, they and theii- 

 successors were the means of bringing Harland into touch with 

 the owners of the White Star Line. This latter collabora- 

 tion is of coiuse historical in the annals of shipping, but it 

 is less well known that an equally close, and still older, con- 

 nection has now lasted between Messrs. Bibby and the Queen's 

 Island for 55 years, unbroken except in that Messrs. Bibby sold 

 their original fleet, and then, some 26 years ago, started a new 

 .service trading to the Far East. Harland's first boat thus was 

 not only remarkable in herself, but also in opening a business 

 connection which has lasted down to the present day — the whole 

 of Messrs. Bibby's excellent fleet hails from the Island, — and it 

 would be hard to suggest any reason why the connection should 

 not be indefinitely continued. 



