The Colonial Clippers

by Basil Lubbock

Patrick Henderson’s Albion Shipping Company.

The chief rival of the Shaw, Savill before the advent of the New Zealand Shipping Company was Patrick Henderson, who owned the Albion Shipping Company. But in the early days he was also in the China and Rangoon trades. His first ships in the New Zealand emigrant trade were fine, comfortable wooden vessels without any special turn of speed, such as the Agnes Muir, Pladda, Lady Douglass, Jane Henderson, Vicksburgh and Helenslee. But he had some very fast wood and composite clippers, which during the sixties were mostly in the Shanghai trade, and later took their turn at carrying emigrants to New Zealand.