Harland & Wolff (H&W), the Belfast based shipbuilder that built Titanic in 1912 and tens of other liners, has been placed into administration following the collapse of its principal shareholder, Dolphin Drilling of Norway, last month.

H&W employed just 120 persons at the time of its collapse, a pale shadow of the more than 30,000 that it had on its payroll in its post war heydays.

It has not built a ship since the delivery of a large roro vessel in 2002, but the shipyard has been used by e.g. the ferry industry for maintenance and refit work.

In 2018, the Northern Ireland based MJM Group used the shipyard to revamp the former P&O Cruises Adonia into Azamara Pursuit of Azamara Cruises in a project that took three months and was valued at about £50 million, according to media reports.

H&W had been active in the offshore work, a business that has been badly hurt by the sharp fall in the price of oil in late 2014. This forced its majority shareholder, Dolphin Drilling, into bankruptcy earlier this summer. The company was previously known as Fred. Olsen Energy.

H&W built all the newbuildings of White Star Line, which owned the Titanic, staring with the Oceanic of 1871 and ending with the line’s final vessel, the Georgic of 1932.

It also built most of the liners of Union Castle Line that served South and East Africa from the UK. However, a delayed delivery of Pendennis Castle in 1959 as a result of a strike terminated this relationship.

H&W is also remembered as the builder of Canberra, which was delivered to P&O in 1961. Originally a liner serving the Australian and Trans-Pacific trades,  the ship came to play a major role in the development of the UK cruise industry during its 36 year career.