The Liverpool and Mediterranean Trade.
Sir George Burns' reference to the making of the Cunard Company brings to my mind the story told by my father-in-law, William Miles Moss, of the beginnings of the Mediterranean steamship trade, which has made for Liverpool people so many great fortunes. He said that his firm, James Moss and Co., Vianna Chapple and Co., and John Bibby and Sons, were engaged in the Mediterranean trade, which they conducted with sailing schooners and brigs. In 1848 he thought the time had arrived to replace these by steamers, and his firm chartered a paddle steamer, which traded to the Isle of Man, for an experimental voyage to the Mediterranean. She made a most successful voyage to Genoa, Leghorn, etc., and he was so encouraged that he made a contract to build a screw steamer for the Egyptian trade to cost £21,000. Mr. Moss invited the heads of the firms I have named to dinner at his house, in Lower Breck Road, and told them what he had done, and asked them to take shares in his new venture, and then passed a paper round the table that they might write down the interest they were willing to take. It was returned to him with only £12,000 subscribed. He said, "I told them they were a shabby lot, and that I would take the balance." This was the first steamer built to trade between Liverpool and Alexandria.
Mr. Moss was a very shrewd, long-sighted man, and for years was the moving spirit in the Mediterranean steamship trade, being largely interested in Bibby's as well as being the principal owner of the fleet of James Moss and Co. He was for many years a member of the Dock Board, in which he was followed by his son and his grandson.