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Supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund

the blackman tech

100 years of education in Belfast

Art The Stained Glass Window in Central Hall of the Belfast Municipal Technical Institute which proudly illustrates Naval Architecture. Art Harland and Wolff shipyard as the RMS Titanic is being built in the background and the SS Nomadic is also under construction to the left. The buildings to the right is now where the Titanic Quarter Campus is situated. Art An old picture of the RMS Olympic. signs Naval Architecture Students floating a model tanker to test seaworthiness.
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The Belfast Metropolitan College is now situated in the Titanic Quarter of Belfast, very close to where the Titanic was designed and constructed. This is an interesting twist of fate, because many of those who worked on the Titanic and other famous liners of the day were trained and educated in the old Belfast Municipal Technical Institute, sited in the city centre. The connection between the College and shipbuilding date as far back as the 1870s, but the constriction of the Technical Institute in the first decade of the 20th Century allowed Harland and Wolff and the other shipyards to have their workforce trained to the highest standards of technical expertise. Other subjects were taught allied to the world of shipping. Students learning the new miracle technology of wireless telegraphy could communicate with ships equipped with receivers. For the first time in history messages could be sent, and received, over vast distances including the worlds’ oceans, without the need for wires and cables. The new college was indeed at the cutting edge of technology. The College continued to train the workforce of the Belfast Shipyards until the industry declined in the 1970s and 80s.


Institute Prospectuses for these years allow us a glimpse into the science of ship design and construction. Students and apprentices were taught:
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- Naval Architecture
- Practical Mathematics
- Practical Geometry
- Applied Mechanics and Heat Engines

Every aspect of ship construction was covered on these courses including:
Preparing ground for a shipyard, ship structure, riveting, tools used in shipbuilding and stresses experienced by ships.


 

 

 

 


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Shipyard workers stream out of the shipyards in May 1911. In the background can be seen the, soon to be launched, ‘Titanic’. To the left the White Star Line tender ‘Nomadic’ is being completed. The Belfast Metropolitan College now occupies the site of the buildings to the right of the photograph. It is intriguing to speculate how many of these men would have trained as apprentices in the Municipal Technical College.


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RMS ‘OLYMPIC’ sister ship to the ‘TITANIC’ in 1911 equipped with the most powerful wireless station in the world- the ship’s aerial being highlighted. This photograph was displayed on Floor C of the Municipal Technical Institute in the Naval Architecture Suite.