Designed by Adam Hunter and Sir William Arrol & Co Ltd, and built in in Clydebank, Scotland just after the turn of the century, the Titan Crane was designed to lift boilers and engines at the John Brown & Company shipyard. At 164 feet tall (50m), its innovative design included a fixed counterweight and electrically operated hoists, mounted on a rotating beam. This allowed the crane to be faster and more responsive than its steam-powered predecessors.

The crane is the earliest survivor of its type, having been described as "the largest crane of the hammer-head or Titan' type, by Engineering Magazine in 1907. It contributed significantly to shipbuilding and world transport, and had produced comparable or similar projects in numerous countries.

The Titan Crane was jointly honored by the Institution of Civil Engineering (ICE), ASME, the Institution of Mechanical Engineering (IMechE), American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE), and ASME in 2013.