Shipping Companies - Great Britain: Books - History

British India Steam Navigation Co Lines of the 1950's and 1960's

The British India Steam Navigation Company Limited, dating from 1862, was one of Britain's largest and most important shipping firms and has been owned by the even larger P&O since 1914. BI, as it was commonly called, created and maintained a great network of sea-going services - to Africa, India and the Middle East, and to the more distant Far East.

BI passenger ships in particular were important for the steady, uninterrupted flow of representatives and citizens of the Crown - from the likes of High Commissioners in first class to Indian workers in deck class. These were links in an age now gone completely.

William H. Miller, author of over eighty maritime books, reviews the final fleet, the last great era, in the 1950s and 1960s, of the British India Steam Navigation Company's passenger ships.

Ellerman Lines - Remembering a Great British Shipping Company

Ellerman Lines was formed by John Reeves Ellerman at the end of the nineteenth century. Ellerman left home at age 14, and at 24 he established J. Ellerman & Co. in London; by 1893, he had been appointed chair of a shipping company. Following the acquisition of various companies, Ellerman Lines Ltd was formed on 22 January 1902, becoming one of the greatest shipping lines in the world.

Services were offered to the Mediterranean, India, South America and East and South Africa as the Ellerman group grew and grew. Ellerman Lines traded successfully throughout war and peace, heavily involved in the war effort, until the third quarter of the century, when many countries gained their independence from Britain and 1960s containerisation saw this once great shipping line close for good.

Using many previously unpublished photographs illustrating the different types of vessels owned by Ellerman Lines, experienced maritime author Ian Collard turns his attention to the company's history, from its establishment in 1886 until the shipping business was bought by its management in 1985.
It was then sold to the Trafalgar House conglomerate, which merged it with its ownership of the Cunard Line to form Cunard-Ellerman in 1987. In 1991 it passed to the Andrew Weir Shipping Group and in 2003 the Mediterranean, Middle East, African, Indian and Pakistan services were acquired by Hamburg Süd and the Ellerman brand was replaced by them exactly two years later.

The Pacific Steam Navigation Company - Fleet List & History

Founded in 1838 in Liverpool, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was the first to operate steamships in the Pacific and primarily traded from the UK to the Pacific coasts of South America. Its most famous ships included the Reina del Pacifico and the Reina del Mar.

With a line of notable firsts to its name, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company name had disappeared by 1984, part of the rationalization of Furness Withy Group. In 1990, Furness Withy itself was sold to Hamburg Sud, another line which had operated on the South Atlantic and Pacific routes.

Many in Liverpool and in South and Central America, from Panama to Tierra del Fuego have fond memories of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and this history and fleet list will bring back memories of those vessels of the line, both deep sea and coastal, which once operated on the South American run.

Union Castle Liners - from Great Britain to Africa 1946-1977

It was one of the most important British liner routes of all - the express run from Southampton to the South African Cape. Carrying passengers as well as cargo, including the all-important mail, it was a byword in travel - 'every Thursday at 4', as one of the big Union-Castle liners set off for Cape Town and beyond.

By the late 1950s, these mail ships included the Arundel Castle, Carnarvon Castle, Winchester Castle, Athlone Castle, Stirling Castle, Capetown Castle and two post-war sensations, the Edinburgh Castle and Pretoria Castle. Three new liners arrived in 1959, the last great ships built for Union-Castle. They were Pendennis Castle, Windsor Castle and Transvaal Castle.

The route was not just to the Cape - for Union-Castle also offered a service down the East coast of Africa and a round-Africa route too. In 1977, with the mail contract and passengers lost to the jet and cargo to container ships, the service ceased in October that year and Union-Castle was no more.

William H Miller tells the story of the post-war Union Castle ships.