Though many of the ships sent away from Liverpool to the Colonies were hired by the Government Emigration Department, these were only a small fraction of the vast fleet sailing out of the Mersey between 1852 and 1857. The most prominent firms in the great emigration trade from Liverpool to Australia were:—James Baines & Co., of the Black Ball Line; Pilkington & Wilson, of the White Star Line; James Beazley; Henry Fox, of the Fox Line; Miller & Thompson, of the Golden Line; and Fernie Bros., of the Red Cross Line.
Mr. JAMES BAINES.
Many of these firms, including the Black Ball and White Star, were brokers as well as owners, and very often the ships advertised in their sailing lists were privately owned.
James Baines, of the Black Ball Line.
The Black Ball Line, the most celebrated line of passenger ships, perhaps, in its day, owned its existence to a little self-made man named James Baines. And the Black Ball Line would never have become the great concern that it was in its palmy days if it had not been for this man’s foresight and enterprise. He, it was, who realised the genius of the great American shipbuilder, Donald Mackay, and gave him an order for four ships, the like of which the world had never seen before—ships which knowing men in the business pronounced to be too big and likely to prove mere white elephants once the first rush of gold seekers was over. However, James Baines, although he was but a young man of barely thirty, had the courage of his convictions, and he proved to be in the right, for it was these big Mackay clippers which really made the reputation of the Black Ball Line.
James Baines was a very lively, little man, fair with reddish hair. His vitality was abnormal and he had an enthusiastic flow of talk. Of an eager, generous disposition, his hand was ever in his pocket for those in trouble; and he was far from being the cool, hard-headed type of business man. He was as open as the day and hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, nevertheless his far-sightedness and his eager driving power carried him to the top in so phenomenally short a time that his career has become a sort of romantic legend in Liverpool.
He was born in Upper Duke Street, Liverpool, where his mother kept a cake and sweet shop, in which many a present-day Liverpool shipowner can remember stuffing himself as a boy. Indeed, Mrs. Baines had such a reputation that she is said to have made one of the wedding cakes for the marriage of Queen Victoria.