Thomas Andrews Jr. was born on 7 February 1873 in Comber, County Down, Northern Ireland, the son of the Right Honourable Thomas Andrews and Eliza Pirrie, and nephew of Lord Pirrie, principal owner of the Harland & Wolff shipyard. He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution before joining Harland & Wolff at 16 as a premium apprentice, rising through the drawing and design departments to become the firm’s managing director overseeing ship design. He was elected to the Institution of Naval Architects in 1901. He married Helen Reilly Barbour on 24 June 1908, and the couple had one daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1910; the family lived at „Dunallon,“ 20 Windsor Avenue, Belfast.
As chief designer of the RMS Titanic, Andrews led the „Guarantee Group,“ a team of Harland & Wolff engineers who sailed aboard new vessels to observe their performance and identify improvements, as he had done previously on the Adriatic, Oceanic and Olympic. He boarded the Titanic at Belfast holding a complimentary First Class ticket, number 112050, in cabin A-36, spending much of the voyage reviewing the ship’s blueprints and assisting the crew. In a letter written shortly before departure he wrote that „The Titanic is now about complete and will I think do the old Firm credit.“
After the collision with the iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912, Andrews was summoned to the bridge and, after inspecting the damaged mail room and squash court, informed Captain Edward Smith that the ship would not remain afloat for more than about two hours. He spent his final hours moving through the ship urging passengers to put on their lifebelts and board the lifeboats. He was last seen standing in the First Class smoking room, staring at a painting of the approach to New York Harbor, his own lifebelt discarded.
Thomas Andrews died in the sinking of the Titanic on 15 April 1912, at the age of 39. His body was never recovered or identified.
This artwork, Titanic Commemorative Memorabilia No. 2092, is dedicated by artist Dodo Newman to the memory of Thomas Andrews as part of the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic collection, handcrafted on PlexiGlass with Swarovski crystals.
Sources: Encyclopedia Titanica (Thomas Andrews, RMS Titanic Chief Designer biography); Certificate of Authenticity, Titanic Commemorative Memorabilia No. 2092 (Dodo Newman).
