The shipbuilding works of Messrs Harland and Wolff (Limited) at Queen’s Island were closed on Saturday, which was regarded as a day of mourning for the members of the staff lost in the Titanic.
With one exception all the members of the staff on board are missing, and among the crew were many belonging to Belfast. Mr Thomas Andrews jun. managing director of the firm, Mr W.H.Parr, assistant manager in the electrical department, Mr.R.Chisholm, draughtsman, and several foremen and apprentices went down with the ship. Messrs Harland and Wolff received a telegram on Saturday announcing the safety of A.Cunningham, one of three apprentices on board, and the news was forwarded to his parents, who had abandoned all hope.
Mr Kempster, one of the directors of Messrs Harland and Wolff, speaking in Belfast on Saturday said it seemed only the other day that he was speaking to Captain Smith, and asked him if the old British pluck remained in the seamen of to-day. Captain Smith was seated at the time, and he got up and raised his hand, declaring that if any disaster such as the loss of the Birkenhead occurred again the seamen would go down as those men went down. He had lived to prove his words.
James Moore, of Belfast, has received the following telegram from a survivor in New York in reference to Mr Andrews:- “Heroic unto death thinking only of safely others.”
