Sir Edward James Harland
Plaque unveiled on 4th December 2001 by Air Marshal Sir Reginald Harland, the great nephew of Sir Edward.
Sir Edward James Harland was born on 5th May 1831 at 10 Newborough and is remembered as the founder of the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast. On 1st January 1862 he made Gustav Wilhelm Wolff a partner, so creating the now world famous company name. The civic society placed the plaque at the site of his birthplace which is now part of Marks and Spencer. Edward Harland was the sixth child of a family of eight. His father, Dr William Harland, originally from Hartoft, practised medicine in Scarborough but was aiso a pioneer in the development of the steam engine, having built and patented a steam powered road car. In 1820 he married Anne Pierson of Goathland. Edward left Scarborough at the age of 15 to become an apprentice at the engineering works of Robert Ste-phenson & Co in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. By 1854 he had moved to manage a shipyard at Queen's Island, Belfast. Here he accepted the offer of purchasing the business from the owner, Robert Hickson for £5,000. With Harland in absolute control, the shipyard on Queen's Island began to grow very quickly. On 26th January 1860, Edward married Rosa Wann of Vermont, Belfast and she proved to be a great help and support to him.
New orders for larger ships meant Harland found it necessary to take on a partner to assist in the management of the business. He chose his 27 year old assistant Gustav Wilhelm Wolff. Wolff and the combination of these two young and able men led to a whole spate of new ideas in shipbuilding. Harland increased the length of his ships without increasing the beam to give greater carrying capacity whilst achieving the same speed with the same available power. He also replaced the wooden upper deck with one of iron thus effectively making the hull a box girder section of immense strength. He designed ships with flatter bottoms and squarer bilges to further increase capacity. By 1885 the company were building comparatively large ships of 3,500 tons. Within a few years, however, they built Teutonic and Majestic for the White Star Line both of which were 582 feet long having a gross tonnage of 10,000.

Sir Edward Harland died on 28th December 1895 and is buried in Belfast.