Scotland and the Sea. Nick Robins
of ‘Paddy’ that the business took his name, despite his early death at the age of thirty-three, just seven years after the foundation of the company in Glasgow. Like so many other Scottish companies it started by taking Scottish coal to Italy and importing Italian marble to Scotland. Venturing further afield, it eventually made Burma its main overseas destination, having earlier found difficulties with return cargoes from New Zealand, which had been its original target. Other famous west-coast companies include the Glen Line, established at Glasgow in 1867 by Alan Gow, becoming part of the London Scottish school (see chapter 5), and ultimately part of the Alfred Holt empire trading to the Far East, and even ‘Hungry Hogarth’, a firm noted for its tramp steamers registered at Ardrossan, and founded there in 1868 by Hugh Hogarth and James Goodwin.
In 1825 George Thompson of Aberdeen started to run sailing ships to Canada in the lumber trade. This became the famous Aberdeen Line, running passenger-cargo ships to Australia, and which eventually merged with an Australian company to become the Aberdeen & Commonwealth Lines. William and Alexander Thomson set up a company at Leith in 1839, specifically to import Italian marble, this time as the nucleus of the famous Ben Line of Steamships trading eventually to the Far East.
A host of new Scottish steamship companies were created to trade to all parts of the globe by the mid nineteenth century. But not all of the ships had Glasgow as their port of registry, as the merchants of Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen were set for their share of the profits of shipowning as well. Besides, the east coast was the obvious location to develop trade both to Europe and along the shorter sea passage from Scottish ports to London.
By the late nineteenth century nearly all the ports on the globe that offered favourable trading conditions were served by a Scottish-owned liner company. The Donaldson Line traded to Canada from the Clyde and the Anchor Line to the United States. Andrew Weir set up farther afield in the Indian Ocean, and eventually focused on a round-the-world service. And although it became a company that based itself at Liverpool, Cunard always had a large proportion of Scots among its deck and engineering officers, a reflection of the respect held for the seafaring and engineering talents that these men offered. Masters of the two great Queen liners, it seems, were more often than not Scots seafarers – an indictment of Scouse talent, or rather a tartan compliment?
The Scottish legacy extends far wider than locally registered shipping companies. Both the Orient Line and Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company had distinctly Scottish roots, as also did the British India Steam Navigation Company. Shaw, Savill & Albion, of course, incorporated the Albion Line, formerly owned by Paddy Henderson and based at Glasgow.
But not all steamships flew the Red Ensign. The steamship slowly but surely populated the merchant navies the world over. As the steamers developed in size and power, so too higher-value parcels of cargo began to be carried. In due course, iron-hulled screw steamers with greater deadweight allowed bulk cargoes, such as coal and grain, to be transported on the high seas.
Scotland should take pride in the men who took up the development of infrastructure, not only in Scotland but on the wider front, prescribed by the massive incoming development of industry and international trade. Hurd again:
The names of two great Scottish engineers, Thomas Telford and John Rennie, emerge … To Thomas Telford, the son of a shepherd, and himself in early life a herd boy, Great Britain owed the construction of the Caledonian Canal, the harbours of Dundee and Aberdeen, the construction of nearly 1,000 miles of road, as well as some 2,000 bridges … The construction of St Katharine’s Dock in London, finished in the year 1828, was also due to Telford. We trace to the engineering genius of John Rennie – the son of a farmer, and, like Telford, educated in a Parish school – the great system of the Kennet and Avon Canal, many bridges including Southwark and Waterloo bridges across the Thames, the construction of harbours at Grimsby, Hull, Holyhead and Kingston [Dun Laoghaire], as well as the improvement of Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham and Sheerness dockyards.
Currie Line of Leith – home trade, Baltic and Mediterranean
It is easy to overlook the unglamorous home trade and near-Continental services, despite their being an important part of the Merchant Navy. There are several compelling reasons for their importance. East-coast Scottish ports were strategically best placed for trade with Scandinavia, the Baltic, Germany and Denmark. Trade to southern Europe was promoted by the Victorian need for Italian marble with which to mark their wealth, and this led to a thriving trade with the Mediterranean. Additionally, there was a need for fine wine, port and sherry and this provided a nucleus for trade with Portugal and southern France.
A number of the famous long-haul shipping companies started in the European trade, notably P Henderson & Company working from Glasgow, and Arthur Anderson’s Peninsular Steam Navigation Company in London, both initially focused on trade to the Mediterranean. Other companies evolved from coastal services and trade across the North Sea. The Currie Line was one such, going back to the days of sail when the Hull & Leith Shipping Company was established in 1800. Various mergers with other coasting companies took place until in 1848 the company became the Leith, Hull & Hamburgh Steam Packet Company [sic] on commencing a service to Hamburg. The new route was the outcome of an expanded fleet while the company was led by Thomas Barclay, shipbuilder of Glasgow, and Leith entrepreneur and businessman Robert Cook.
In 1862 James Currie joined the firm, providing a firm link with the Castle Line trading to South Africa under the direction of brother Donald Currie. James Currie maintained regular passenger and cargo sailings to Hamburg, Copenhagen and Stettin, with an extensive array of cargo services to the Baltic. James Currie soon needed extra capacity, and rather than replace his modern fleet of steamships he sent them to Granton one by one to be lengthened. Six of the fleet were so dealt with. All Currie’s ships were, in any case, sturdily built to withstand the rigours of the North Sea. The rebuilding programme was followed in the 1870s by a progressive replacement of the engines with the new and more efficient compound system, while six brand new steamers were also commissioned. Business was indeed buoyant. The fleet survived the subsequent late-Victorian depression but twelve ships spent a lengthy sojourn in a backwater at Leith Docks for the duration, although the fleet had recovered by 1895 to a total of forty-one ships.
During the Great War the basic European trade of the company was suspended; three of its ships were detained in German ports at the start of hostilities. Post-war, Donald Currie’s Liverpool-based Liverpool and Hamburg Line was absorbed into the Leith-based interests and the service suspended until conditions improved in the early 1920s. The important European emigrant trade, with connections in the UK for transatlantic routes, had virtually ended by the 1920s, but passenger berths were still on offer and were of an elegance that attracted the more discerning traveller away from the arduous Dover and Calais train links to Germany. Four Dutch cargo steamers, Haarlem, Hague, Helder and Helmond, were purchased to replace war losses, bringing their characteristic Dutch names into the fleet. In 1923 four ships were bought from the Khedivial Mail Steamship Company of Egypt. These were all given names ending in -land, eg Sutherland, Finland, and this nomenclature was preferred thereafter, except for the two new ships for the Copenhagen service delivered in 1928 which were given Viking names Hengist and Horsa. By 1930 the Leith, Hull & Hamburgh Steam Packet Company, James Currie’s Currie Line, provided two departures a week from Leith to Hamburg, a weekly sailing to Copenhagen and Christiansand, and occasional services to other Continental ports.
The Hamburg service also received new tonnage when the twelve-passenger Courland and Gothland were commissioned in 1932. Sister ships, Courland built by Barclay Curle, and Gothland by Henry Robb of Leith, were then delivered for the Hamburg service. They were splendid examples of North Sea steamers built between the wars. Driven by one set of triple expansion engines with steam generated by twin oil-fired boilers at 185 psi (pounds per square inch), their service speed was a little under 14 knots. They were most attractive yet strong-looking ships, complete with modern cruiser sterns, gentle sheer and balanced profiles with central island accommodation. The all-riveted hull was ice-strengthened and built to a shelter deck design with a full length ’tween deck and a lower ’tween deck in the forward hold. There were four holds served by an array of derricks including a 10-ton heavy-lift derrick that plumbed no.