Steam-ships

by R. A. Fletcher

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, which threatened serious financial loss to the P. & O. Company, proved of great benefit to the British India Company. The P. & O. “for thirty years had built up and depended for existence upon the only traffic which was possible in connection with the transit through Egypt, viz., the conveyance of passengers and goods at rates which were necessarily high, owing to the conditions under which the work had to be carried on. These conditions and the rates depending on them were swept away by the opening of the canal, and the financial consequences were such that for some time the future existence of the company appeared to hang doubtfully in the balance. The company’s work had therefore to be reorganised, and a new fleet procured with what diligence was possible under the adverse condition of reduced, and at one time of vanished, profit.”

This extract from the company’s Handbook is interesting, but considering how long the Suez Canal was in building, the company can hardly be said to have made any undue haste in anticipating the coming change.

The difficulties of the P. & O. Company, caused by the opening of the Suez Canal, were increased by the objections which the Post Office raised to the use of the canal for the passage of the mails instead of the Egyptian Railway, but it gave way on this point “for a pecuniary consideration, that is to say, for a sensible abatement of the subsidy, which was not an easy matter to arrange at a time when the company was struggling for existence. However, the company made some concession, and it was finally arranged that the heavy mails which were then sent from England by sea should in future be carried by the Suez Canal, but it was not till 1888, when the company had reduced their charge for the conveyance of the mails by nearly £100,000 per annum, that the accelerated mails sent via Brindisi were also transferred to the Canal Route. The company’s connection with the Overland Route through Egypt, which had existed for half a century, was then finally closed.”[74]

[74] P. & O. Handbook.

H.M. Troopship “Himalaya.”

The Union Line was founded in 1853 as the Union Steam Collier Company, and it made a start with five little steamers, the largest of which were the Dane and Norman of 530 tons. The outbreak of the Crimean War, and the consequent withdrawal of the P. & O. steamers from the Southampton and Constantinople service for use as transports, saw the Union vessels placed upon that service till they also were engaged as transports, and a sixth vessel was acquired. When the war was ended, the steamers were placed for a time in the Southampton and Brazil trade, but it was not a very profitable venture and they were diverted to the South African trade, the company receiving a subsidy of £30,000 a year for five years for carrying the mails to and from the Cape of Good Hope. The first sailing was made by the Dane in September 1857, and the sailings thereafter were monthly. The subsidy was increased by £3000 the following year on condition that calls were made at St. Helena and Ascension.

In 1857, Rennie’s “Aberdeen” Line, after having been for many years in sail, went in for steam and despatched its first steamers, Madagascar and Waldensian, from London to South Africa, carrying the mails between Cape Town and Durban. These are stated to have been the first steamers on the South African coast. The Madagascar, of 500 tons, was commanded by Captain George Rennie. Like all the long-distance steamers of her time, she carried a large spread of sail, but her engines, like those of most of her contemporaries, were calculated to be able to render her independent of the wind if it did not happen to be suitable, and therein they marked a great improvement upon those of an earlier type, which were merely assistants to sail. The steamers built in the later ’fifties were intended to place reliance principally on their engines, because of the regularity of passage thereby secured, rather than upon their sail-power; so that even by this time, although the vessels were described as auxiliary steamers, a more correct description would have been that they were steam-propelled vessels carrying a large spread of canvas.

In March 1859, Messrs. J. and W. Dudgeon issued a circular on the subject of steam navigation direct to Calcutta round the Cape, pointing out that “steam hereafter will be almost exclusively employed in the transport of goods between East India and Australia and the United Kingdom may be taken for granted; this is merely a matter of time.” The circular continued that the Cape route would certainly be simple and safe, and therefore superior to the overland route, especially if it could be rendered expeditious and profitable. The conditions required that vessels of not less than 5500 tons, builders’ measurement, be supplied at a total cost per vessel of £150,000; the voyage, it was anticipated, would take thirty or thirty-five days, or only a couple of days more than the overland route. As a correct forecast of the size of vessels which until a few years ago conveyed the great bulk of the merchandise between Britain and the Far East, this statement is interesting and shows how accurately the needs of the traffic were estimated.