The son of Alfred Yarrow, founder of the great shipbuilding dynasty, he served an apprenticeship before joining the family company that built fast torpedo boats on the Thames at Poplar, becoming an expert in water-tube boilers. At the age of 22 he was sent to Scotland by his father Alfred to plan the new Yarrow’s shipyard on the Clyde after orders and growth had outgrown the Isle of Dogs. He became Managing Director of Yarrows at the age of 35, retiring 40 years later.

No less than 29 destroyers, 16 gunboats, 1 submarine, 3 hospital ships and 1 floating workshop were built in Yarrow’s Scotstoun yard during the First World War alone, a huge contribution to ultimate victory, recognised by a CBE for Harold in 1919. He served as President of Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland and Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights. He was a Director of Midland Bank and chairman of the North of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank.

Having made the big, but strategically important, decision to move Yarrows lock, stock and barrel from London to the Clyde, the Scotstoun shipyard still thrives as part of BAE Systems and its growth under Harold’s leadership fits very well with SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).

He is pictured above at the launch of HMIS Kistna for the Royal Indian Navy on 22 April 1943, the ceremony performed by Mrs Godfrey, wife of Vice Admiral V H Godfrey.