h&w archive

• The Ship Plans Archive covers ships from the late 1880s to the 1980s. Many are still rolled on their original numbered dowels. There are an estimated 500,000 documents.
• There are plans or documents for more than 1,200 of Harland & Wolff’s 1,742 ships. The number of documents per ship varies, with later ships tending to have most, while some have no surviving paperwork. Among the earliest ship plans in our possession are those for Grecian, no. 7 built in 1860, albeit in a presentation frame and not a working plan. Our most recent plans are for Knock Adoon, ship number 1729, a Suezmax tanker (designed to travel through the Suez Canal), built in 1992.
• The plans include general arrangements, midship sections and rigging plans, plus electrical specifications, boilers, pipework and accommodation plans.
• There are also orders, correspondence and ephemera of one of the world’s biggest shipyards. 
• And the archive also includes a number of plans produced by Workman Clark & Company. There are plans for 75 ships, from the Indian (no. 170), to the last ship built by Workman Clark, the Acavus (no. 536) completed in January 1935. 

• If you would like to view specific ship plans, please email [email protected], providing ship name and yard/ship number. High‑resolution digital scans are also available on request (fees apply).
• Researchers can apply for access to the Harland & Wolff Archive. The Library & Archives building, based at the Ulster Folk Museum, offers a dedicated research space and holds extensive heritage collections relating to the history and culture of Ulster and beyond. For more information, email [email protected] or call 028 9039 5130.

We are in the early stages of cataloguing this large collection of ship plans, but details of plans will be uploaded here and also on Collections Online as the project progresses.

We have very few records like this. If they were involved in design decisions or held senior management positions, there may be correspondence involving them, but this hasn’t been documented yet. The Archivist may be able to help your research, but there may also be nothing in the archive. 

The designs for the Olympic Class liners, Titanic, Olympic and Britannic, have all been digitised and some are on display in the Titanica exhibition at the Ulster Transport Museum.  

The ship plans are just one part of the Harland & Wolff story at National Museums NI. 

• The Harland & Wolff photographic archive contains c.75,000 images of the shipyard, many of which were taken by Robert Welch, the company photographer.  
• The Paul Louden-Brown White Star Line Collection comprises over 7,000 items and illustrates the context of Titanic through the history of its parent company. Established in 1869, White Star Line became a world-renowned shipping company, and almost all of its ships were built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast.
• The Library & Archives has a significant collection of maritime history books, as well as documents including correspondence from Harland & Wolff Chairman Viscount Lord Pirrie, and other Harland & Wolff materials: ledgers, record books, and minute books.