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It was with profound regret that in June 1924 that the News Letter recorded the death, in his 78th year, of Viscount Pirrie, KP, head of the great Belfast shipbuilding firm of Harland and Wolff, Ltd, which had occurred from bronchial pneumonia at sea off the coast of South America. He died on June 7, 1924

Lord Pirrie had left Southampton on Saturday, 22nd March 1924, accompanied Lady Pirrie, Miss Carlisle, and Dr J S Morrow of Belfast, on an extended tour of South American waters, which he proposed to visit with a view to what modifications would be necessary in new ships so that they might suit the proposals which were under contemplation for the improvement of the harbours and ports of that part of the world.

During the tour Lord Pirrie visited Brazil, the Argentine, and Chili, and about a week or 10 days ago he and his party left Valparaiso, the great Chilean port for New York on board the P&O liner Ebro.

The News Letter noted that Lord Pirrie, “it appears, had been suffering from a cold, which developed into bronchial pneumonia”, and he died while the ship, so far as is known from the particulars at present available, was passing through the Panama Canal.

It added: “It may be said, therefore, that the head of the great firm which has helped to make Belfast famous throughout the world died in harness. He was expected to be home on 20th June, and arrangements were being made for his return, he and his party were to have left New York on board the Olympic.”

News of the sad event reached Northern Ireland by means of a marconigram to the Right Honourable J M Andrews, Comber, whose mother, the widow of the late Mr Thomas Andrews, DL, was the only sister of Viscount Pirrie.

The wireless message was from the SS. Ebro, and was dated Sunday, 8th June. It slated: “After a fortnight’s attack of bronchial pneumonia. Lord Pirrie passed quietly last evening.”

The News Letter, in an editorial published on the same day that it carried details on Lord Pirrie's death, added its lament for the lost of a great man.

“The news which we publish today of the death of Lord Pirrie will come as a shock to the people Belfast, and with a sense of great loss,” the News Letter declared.

“For in a very peculiar sense the city has lost perhaps its greatest personal asset, man who in his day and generation achieved a world-wide distinction a builder up of industry our city.

“He, of course, shared that distinction with others. We publish picture today in which Lord Pirrie is shown in a group with three others - the late Sir Edward Harland, the late W G Wolff, and the late Walter Wilson.

“It is safe to say that in the whole record of British shipbuilding there never was such combination of highly-trained industrial and business genius as is shown in this group.

“Taken as a whole, it represents a degree of excellence that is outstanding. And the wonderful thing is that in Lord Pirrie the merits of his old colleagues seem to have been concentrated alter they had passed away.

“For, great as was the progress which the firm made while they were all working together, it was accelerated and the firm’s developments greatly added to by him in the past twenty years, when the whole the controlling power, with its great responsibilities, became vested in him.

“He entered the firm of Harland and Wolff when it was in its infancy, as a premium apprentice, and after a practical experience of ten years he was taken into the partnership at 27 years of age.

“He had, therefore, completed just over sixty years of continuous work, fifty of them as a partner and director, and something like the last twenty them with sole control.

“And yet these last twenty years were the most fruitful in expansion and accomplishment in the history of the firm.

“As advanced in years, Lord Pirrie seemed to ripen more and more not only in judgment - which often the case with really great minds - but what was remarkable, his intellectual alertness became more acute, and his far-sighted enterprise reached out to fresh conquests.

“There was no halt in his long, busy life. As he added burden after burden to his ever-increasing responsibilities, each addition only appears to have rejuvenated him.

“As his hair whitened, his activities seemed to give him a fresh vigour of mind and to act upon his body as a tonic.

“Just before he and Lady Pirrie departed for South America in March, he spent several weeks at the Queen’s Island on one of his periodical inspections.

“We have it reliable testimony that this – which, alas! was to prove his last presence on the scene of his great lifework – he excelled even himself in the intimacy which showed with every detail the vast industry.

“Nothing escaped his keen vision; had everything connected with every department at his finger-ends so to speak, and brought to bear upon it the whole of his wide experience and knowledge.

“Yet the great shipbuilding yard at the Twin Islands in these latter years was only the parent yard; there were the yards and engineering shops on the Clyde at Glasgow, Partick, and Govan, at Port-Glasgow and Greenock, which Lord Pirrie had added to the firm; and the yards in Liverpool and in Southampton, and the latest works on the Thames - all in turn came under the same meticulous supervision and control.

“And that was by means the whole of it. For Lord Pirrie was as great figure in the ship-owning world as in the shipbuilding, and in many collateral commercial undertakings.

“Yet never permitted himself to engrossed entirely in business. Belfast he was a public man in the best sense of that term, always ready to lend his aid and influence to every philanthropic and charitable cause.

“Local patriotism was ever strong in him, witness his many years’ work on the Belfast Harbour Board and on the City Council, with his two successive years in the office of Lord Mayor.

“To him and to Lady Pirrie the Royal Victoria Hospital will always stand as record their good work. What he did in the Great War to maintain our merchant service on the sea in his own shipbuilding yards and Controller of Merchant Shipping was sufficient in itself to give him world wide reputation.

“And, like every great man, hen was most simple in his life habits, and easy of approach to those who had good ground for seeking his time.”

The News Letter conclude: “Here in Belfast, which knew him well, there will be profound sympathy with and sincere sorrow felt for Lady Pirrie.

“For husband and wife were never bound in closer bonds than were Viscount and Viscountess Pirrie.

“They were two personalities in one, each the perfect complement of the other; where the one was, there was the other supporting and sustaining.

“Belfast mourns with Lady Pirrie, and sorrows with her in her sorrow.”

Lord Pirrie dies while at sea during voyage from South America to New York City (1924)

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