Shan F. Bullock

“ My Dear Andrews,
No act of friendship is so difficult as the letter of condolence upon the loss of one who is near and dear. Strive as we may to avoid vapid conventionality, we find ourselves drifting into reflections upon the course of nature, the cessation of suffering, the worse that might have been, and such offers of comfort to others which we are conscious would be of little help to ourselves. ”

“ On both sides of the Atlantic, wherever men resort whose business is in the great waters, owners, commanders, directors, managers, architects, engineers, ships officers, stewards, sailors, the name Tom Andrews is honoured to-day as that of one whose remarkable combination of gifts claimed not only their admiration, but their affection.
“What we are to do without Andrews,” said a Belfast ship-owner, “I don’t know. He was probably the best man in the world for his job—knew [45] everything—was ready for anything—could manage everyone—and what a friend! It’s irreparable. ”

“ All this is important, vital a great deal of it; but after all what concerns us chiefly, in this brief record, is the kind of man Thomas Andrews was—that and the fine end he made. Everything, one supposes, in this workaday world, must eventually be expressed in terms of character. Though a man build the Atlantic fleet, himself with superhuman vigour of hand and brain, and have not character, what profiteth it him, and how much the less profiteth it the fleets maybe, at last? ”

“ We are deeply interested in the great achievements of Ulster industry, because we hold strongly that the prosperity of our country depends largely [x] upon the mutual understanding and the co-ordination of effort between the two great economic interests into which the Irish, in common with most civilised peoples, are divided. For this consummation Ireland needs, in our opinion, industrial leaders with a broader conception of the life of the country as a whole. For such leaders we naturally look, more especially those of us whose eyes are turning towards the westering sun, to the younger men. ”

“ No [35] mean thought of self, no small striving after worldly success, but always the endeavour to work in his own way to suit his spirit and to prove his powers. If that way be narrow—well, so is the way narrow that leads to eternal life.
But, it might be said, Andrews had such opportunity and the rare good fortune also to have his spirit suited with work that proved his powers. It was so. Yet one knows certainly that had his opportunity been different he would still have seized it; have been the best engine driver in Ulster or have greased wheels contentedly and with all diligence. ”

“ Some twenty minutes before the end, when the last distress signal had been fired in vain, when all that Upper deck and the Fore deck as well were ravaged by the sea, there was a crush and a little confusion near the place where the few remaining boats were being lowered, women and children shrinking back, some afraid to venture, some preferring to stay with their husbands, a few perhaps in the grip of cold and terror. Then Andrews came and waving his arms gave loud command:
“Ladies, you must get in at once. There is not a minute to lose. You cannot pick and choose your boat. ”

“ He considered that both in the interests of men and masters, it was well for Labour to be organized under capable leaders; but honest agreements should, he thought, be binding on both sides and not liable to governmental interference. Politicians and others should in their public utterances, he felt, endeavour to educate the workers in the principles of economics relative to trade, wages and the relations between capital and labour; but publicists who, for party or like reasons, strove to foster class hatreds and strifes he would hang by the heels from a gantry. ”

“ Think what scamped work, a flawed shaft, a badly laid plate, an error in calculation, may mean some wild night out in the Atlantic; and when next you are in Belfast go to Queen’s Island and see there, in the shops, on the slips, how everyone is striving, or being made to strive, on your behalf and that of all who voyage, for the absolute best—everything to a hair’s breadth, all as strong and sound as [29] hands can achieve, each rivet of all the millions in a liner (perhaps the most impressive thing one saw) tested separately and certified with its own chalk mark. ”

“ That little sermon by Thomas, with its admixture of shrewdness, wisdom, and kind-heartedness, may be taken as embodying the workaday rules of duty perfected by Andrews [40] through a varied experience of sixteen years—rules doubtless as faithfully observed by himself as they were commended for the guidance of others. What may be called its horse sense, its blunt avowal of how to play the game, helps us towards a fuller understanding of the man, puts him in the plain light through which, every day in view of everyone, he passed. ”

“ Yet Andrews then was no whit more enthusiastic, we feel sure, than on any other day of the great ship’s fashioning, from the time of her conception slowly down through the long process of calculating, planning, designing, building, fitting, until at last she sailed proudly away to the applause of half the world. Whatever share others had in her, his at least cannot be gainsaid. As Lord Pirrie’s Assistant he had done his part by way of shaping into tangible form the projects of her owners. ”

“ It has been said, and doubtless will be said again, that for one to labour as Andrews did, whatever the incentive or object, is an inhuman process making for narrowness of manhood and a condition of drudgery. ”

“ Though no believer in modern cities, he was of opinion that an effort should be made to expand and stimulate Irish village life, it seeming to him that a country dependent solely on agriculture was like a man fighting the battle of life with one hand. Were, however, an approved system of agriculture, such as that advocated by Sir Horace Plunkett, joined with a considered scheme of town and village industries, he believed that emigration would cease and Ireland find prosperity. ”

“ Bullock has rendered the greatest of all his services to lovers of truth told about Ireland by Irish writers.
It will now, I think, be clear why Thomas Andrews has, notwithstanding his noble end, been represented as the plain, hard-working Ulster boy, growing into the exemplary and [xv] finally the heroic Ulster man that we knew. We see him ever doing what his hand found to do, and doing it with his might. Our author, rightly as I think, makes no attempt to present him as a public man; for this captain of industry in the making was wholly absorbed in his duties to the great Firm he served. ”

“ But not that one quality alone gained for Andrews his great, one might say his unique, popularity in the Yard. His vast knowledge, his mastery of detail, his assiduity, his zest: all these merits had their due effect upon the men: and effective too was the desire he showed always to get the best possible out of every worker. ”

“ What grit, what zest and sense of duty, the boy—for he was no more—must have had, so to labour and yet to thrive gloriously! Perfect health, his sound physique, his sunny nature, and strict adherence to the principles of temperance encouraged by his mother, helped him to attain fine manhood. ”

“ Or he kicks a red hot rivet, which has fallen fifty feet from an upper deck, missing his head by inches, and strides on laughing at his escape. Or he calls some laggard to stern account, promising him the gate double quick without any talk next time. Or he lends a ready hand to one in difficulties; or just in time saves another from falling down a hold; or saying that married men’s lives are precious, orders back a third from some dangerous place and himself takes the risk. ”

“ Boilers as tall as houses, shafts a boy’s height in diameter, enormous propellers hanging like some monstrous sea animal in chains, turbine motors on which workmen clambered as upon a cliff, huge lathes, pneumatic hammers, and quiet slow-moving machines that dealt with cold steel, shearing it, punching it, planing it, as if it had been so much dinner cheese. ”

“ While other Irish writers of imagination and genius have used Irish life to express their own temperament, Shan Bullock has devoted his great literary ability almost entirely to the patient, living and sincere study of what Ulster really is in itself as a community of men and women. It is true that his stories are of rural and agricultural communities, while the scene is now laid chiefly in a great centre of manufacturing industry. But in [xiv] Mr. Bullock’s studies it is always the human factor that predominates. ”

“ There is no temptation to be conventional, but it is hard to express in words the very real consolation which will long be cherished by the wide circle of those now bitterly deploring the early death of one who was clearly marked out for a great career in the chief doing part of Irish life. ”

“ In Ulster, heaven knows, are publicists galore, and sufficient men too willing to down tools at any outside horn-blow, that we should the less admire one who spoke only once in public, took no open part in politics, and was not even a strong party-man. ”

“ None the less I am convinced that the public side of the man would not long have remained undeveloped—who knows but that this very year would have called him forth?—because he had to my personal knowledge the right public spirit. ”

“ Concerning his married life, so woefully restricted in point of years as it was rich in bounty of happiness, it is perhaps sufficient to say here that, just before he sailed from Southampton, in April last, on that final tragic voyage, he made occasion, one evening whilst [27] talking with a friend, to contrast his own lot with the lot of some husbands he knew; saying, amongst other things, that in the whole time since his marriage, no matter how often he had been away or how late he had stayed at the Yard, never had Mrs. Andrews made a complaint. ”

“ One feels while reading one of his tales that he loves to look upon a man, especially an Ulster man. Here was the ideal historian of the life of Thomas Andrews.
It fell to me to approach Mr. Bullock. I induced him to go and see the family, having arranged with them to bring him into touch with the authorities at the Island Works, who were to show him round and introduce him to many who knew our friend. ”

“ At all events, in this respect, it seems wise to distinguish as between man and man, and work and work; for with the example of Andrews before them even cavillers must admit that what they call drudgery can be well justified. ”

“ His fellow-directors, in a resolution of condolence, expressed their feeling that “not only had the Firm lost a valued and promising leader, but the city an upright and capable citizen, who, had he lived, would have taken a still more conspicuous place in the industrial and commercial world.” Even in the south, where admiration of Northerners is not commonly fervent, it was admitted by many that in Andrews Ulster had at last found the makings of a leader. ”

“ Shan Bullock, who needs no introduction to those who read Irish books, has done no better work than in this tribute to one of the noblest Irishmen Ulster has produced in modern times. I refer not only to the literary merits of Thomas Andrews, Shipbuilder, which speak for themselves, but rather to the true insight with which he has fulfilled the precise purpose held in view by those who asked him to write this little memorial volume. ”

“ To the consideration of Labour problems, particularly those coming within the scope of his own experience, he gave much thought; and when it is considered that his great popularity with all classes held steady through the recent period of industrial unrest, we may judge that his attitude towards Labour, in the mass as in the unit, was no mere personal expression of friendliness. As his real pals he wanted to help the workers, educate and lift [52] them. Other things being equal, he always favoured the men who used their heads as well as their hands ”

“ The only thing of consequence is what we do.”
The best doing, always and every way, one knows how that aspiration would appeal to Andrews, good Unitarian that he was; just as one knows how Ruskin, he who made roads and had such burning sympathy always with honest workers, would have appreciated Andrews and agreed that the name of such a man should not perish as have the names of most other of the world’s great Architects and Builders. ”

“ Work—work—he must work to the bitter end.
Some saw him for the last time, down in the Engine-room, with Chief engineer Bell and Archie Frost and the other heroes, all toiling [74] like men to keep the lights going and the pumps at work.
Others saw him, a few minutes before the end, on the Boat deck, our final and grandest sight of him, throwing deck chairs overboard to the unfortunates struggling in the water below.
Then, with a slow long slanting dive, the Titanic went down, giving to the sea her short-spanned life and with it the life of Thomas Andrews. ”

“ SHIPBUILDER I. For six generations the Andrews family has been prominent in the life of Comber: that historic and prospering village, near Strangford Lough, on the road from Belfast to Downpatrick: and in almost every generation some one or other of the family has attained distinction. During the eventful times of 1779-82, John Andrews raised and commanded a company of Volunteers, in which his youngest son, James, served as Lieutenant. ”