Margaret Pirrie stood out even among a group of Ulster-Scot alpha males

Shane Leslie, the Ulster-Scot author and literary figure from Glaslough, described William James Pirrie, her husband, as ‘the greatest shipbuilder in the world since Noah’. Others, without comparing him with Noah, described him as ‘not merely the greatest Irish industrialist of his day, but the greatest shipbuilder in the world’.

Margaret’s brother Alexander Carlisle was described as ‘the greatest shipyard manager in Europe’. Two other brothers, Henry and John, founded a shipping company called the Blue Star Line in London. Margaret was not in awe of these high achievers because she had admirable qualities of her own and was able to demonstrate leadership of a very high order.

Margaret Pirrie was born on May 31 1857 and was a daughter of John Carlisle, who taught English at Belfast Academical Institution. Catherine Carlisle, her mother, was from Killead, Co Antrim, and a sister of the mother of William James Pirrie. She married her first cousin, who was born in Quebec, Canada, on April 17 1879.

Although not yet 32, Pirrie was already a significant figure in Harland & Wolff and under his leadership Harland & Wolff would become the greatest shipyard in the world. He was at the forefront of the development of the diesel engine for marine propulsion. His career was contemporaneous with the development of the steel shipbuilding industry. He was ‘the creator of the big ship’ and for many years the largest passenger liners in the world came from his yards, notably the Olympic, the Britannic, and the Titanic.

Probably because the marriage was childless, she took an unusual and exceptionally close interest in her husband’s career. She accompanied him on business trips, visited the shipyard and familiarised herself with the yard’s operation and the company’s finances. Pirrie came to rely on her advice and judgement. On Pirrie’s death, Margaret became honorary president of Harland & Wolff, a position specially created for her.

Margaret was the most significant female philanthropist in late 19th- and early 20th-century Belfast. Her name ought to be inextricably linked with the Royal Victoria Hospital. The RVH was built on a site granted by Belfast Corporation to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and to replace Belfast’s general hospital.

Margaret raised £100,000 for the project in less than a year, of which William James Pirrie donated £5,000 and Margaret £2,000. W J Pirrie gave the hospital a further £11,000 to enable the RVH to open free from debt. The hospital was opened by King Edward VII in 1903. It was the first public building in the world to have air-conditioning, technology pioneered by Samuel Davidson’s Sirocco Works in Belfast. (Davidson was yet another Ulster-Scot.)

Margaret then raised a further £100,000 to endow the hospital, to meet running costs and to allow for expansion. Margaret chaired both the ladies committee and the nursing committee. She was president of the hospital until her death, recognition of her role as the hospital’s most important benefactor.

Before Gladstone’s conversion to Home Rule at the end of 1885 W J Pirrie was a Liberal. He then became a Liberal Unionist (a Liberal opposed to Home Rule). However, in the first decade of the 20th century he reverted to Liberalism and became a Home Ruler and was a prime mover in the establishment of the Ulster Liberal Association in April 1906.

By the end of the second decade of the twentieth century Pirrie had abandoned both Liberalism and support for Home Rule. His acute political antennae informed him that both represented the past rather than the future.

The rebellion in Dublin in 1916 played a significant part in his return to Unionism but the exact role which Margaret played in his changing political allegiances is unclear. However, when her husband was lord mayor of Belfast (in 1896 and 1897) the Marquess of Dufferin and Ava described Margaret as ‘the most charming and most popular lady mayoress who ever sceptered a city or disciplined a husband’. This observation may well be rather more than a conventionally-crafted polite tribute.

Margaret Pirrie broke new ground in a number of areas of public life. In 1904 she became the first woman to be made an honorary burgess of Belfast. In 1922 she became the first female justice of the peace in Belfast. Four years later she became an honorary member of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce.

As her influence was largely exerted through her husband, after his death at sea of pneumonia (off the coast of Cuba) on June 7 1924, it declined markedly. Although Lady Pirrie became honorary president of Harland & Wolff, she conspicuously failed to see eye-to-eye with Sir Owen Phillips who succeeded her late husband as chairman of Harland & Wolff. Sir Owen’s management style was radically different to Lord Pirrie’s autocratic style and his unfortunate compulsion to micromanage everything. Sir Owen, rightly or wrongly, believed that he had inherited a chaotic mess, a viewpoint unlikely to endear him to Lady Pirrie who was a zealous guardian of her husband’s reputation.

When she died in London on June 19 1935, there was unanimous acknowledgement of her widespread and benign influence in so many fields of endeavour: industry, philanthropy, the social services, learning and the arts.

She is buried in Belfast city cemetery.

There are portraits of both Lord and Lady Pirrie in the Reception Room in Belfast City Hall and there is a bust of Lady Pirrie in the RVH.