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Message: [QUOTE="Martin Pirrie, post: 326657, member: 143420"] The story of Pirrie sacking Wilding has, I believe, nothing to do with the sinking of Titanic. Lord Pirrie seems to have kept his financial dealing very much to himself. Olympic and Titanic were both built on a cost + 5 % basis. Ismay trusted Pirrie and vice versa. A handshake completed the deal for the Olympic class. Nowadays, it seems to be pretty casual, but at the time it worked. It appears that in 1921 Wilding told a client of the actual costs of a ship being built by H & W for him, and Lord Pirrie sacked him. Lord Pirrie was not a man to be crossed! His control over Harland & Wolf was absolute. Alexander Carlisle who designed the Olympic class and was at one time Managing Director of H & W, took “early retirement” in 1910 after suddenly standing for election to Parliament in 1906 and splitting the Unionist vote. Lord P was married to Carlisle’s sister, but Carlisle, being his brother-in-law didn’t protect him! Thomas Andrews who was Lord P’s nephew replaced Carlisle and completed the designs of Olympic and Titanic. Lord P had a notable ancestor, his grandfather. Lord P’s grandfather was captured by the French during the Napoleonic Wars while crossing the Atlantic, He escaped, rowed in an open boat across the English Channel and returned to Belfast where he started to dig out what is now Belfast harbour. He was, I believe, the first of the Belfast Harbour Commissioners and his portrait hangs in their office in Belfast. My father sold the picture to the Commissioners in the 1950’s. Martin Pirrie. [/QUOTE]

Verification: In which year did the Titanic sail?