British Shipowners Research Articles

A Liverpool Shipping Line: Ocean Steam Ship Company Limited’s shipbuilding experience, 1962–1978

This article is based on a study, ‘Ocean’s Shipbuilding Experience’, undertaken in April 1976 and updated in January 1977 and January 1978, which investigated the company’s experience in ship construction in the UK and abroad. The investigation applied only to ships built for the Ocean Steam Ship Company and its principal associate companies, and vessels built for Ocean prior to it subsuming the Elder Dempster Line in 1965, in which it was the major shareholder. China Navigation Company vessels were not included in the study. After putting into context, the shift by British shipowners to ordering abroad, we look at some of the classes of ships Ocean included in the study built domestically and abroad and compare accordingly.

The Other Side of History: Underground Literature and the 1951 Waterfront Dispute

In February 1951, industrial discord between New Zealand watersiders and British ship-owners led to a dispute that was seen by each as a lockout and a strike respectively. Throughout the duration of the dispute, the Trades Union Congress and Wellington Waterside Workers’ Union Action Committee produced and distributed substantial amounts of printed material to stiffen the struggle among its members, vilify strike-breakers and the National Government – whose ultimate aim it was to crush the Union –and to ridicule the police – who were the instruments ofenforcement against the newly-minted Waterfront StrikeEmergency Regulations. In defiance of Regulation 4(d),which banned the production and distribution of ‘seditious’literature, a steady stream of illegal leaflets, pamphlets,lino-cut illustrations and cartoons emerged from theGestetners and small presses in the homes of membersand supporters of the watersiders. While printed materialis touched upon in the documented examination of thedispute as a political and industrial struggle, it is never thefocus of discussion. This article examines the multi-modalrhetoric of the underground literature to form a pictureof one side of the story of what was, arguably, the mostdisruptive and divisive 151 days in the history of the NewZealand labour movement.

The Shipping Conference System, Empire and Local Protest in Singapore, 1910–1911

ABSTRACTThis article analyses local opposition in Singapore in 1910–11 to the shipping conference system and the responses of a powerful group of British shipowners and the Colonial Office. The conference, a cartel agreed among shipowners, divided monopoly profits among its members and a small group of London-based merchant houses. We suggest that the concerns of Singapore anti-conference protestors, backed by the governor of the Straits Settlements, counted for little in official London circles when weighed against the vital role of shipping in the British Empire. Even in 1967 the strength of the empire and British shipping was still apparent when the Singapore government refused to support local mercantile opposition to the Far Eastern Freight Conference.

Finding Lascar ‘Wilful Incendiarism’: British Ship-Burning Panic and Indian Maritime Labour in the Indian Ocean

From the 1790s to the 1850s, three dozen major merchant ships burned in India's important ports. Panic-stricken British shipowners, merchants and East India Company officials apprehended disruption of their intercontinental trade, so vital to the burgeoning British Empire. In all these cases, they accused Indian seamen (lascars) of selfish ship-burning. As a context, the lascars had, for centuries prior to European arrival in the Indian Ocean, worked collectively under their own petty officers. They and Indian recruiters in each port had long resisted colonial efforts to appropriate their maritime labour system. Britons used this half-century of alleged arson to finally impose British controls over lascar recruitment ashore and conditions of service aboard ships.

18세기 영국 상선 선원의 기승 구조와 근로 요건

18세기 영국은 시대적 변혁기였다. 영국은 대외적으로는 단속적으로 전쟁을 계속해야 했고, 내적으로는 산업 사회로 전환하고 있었다 영국의 선주들은 계속된 전쟁과 선박량의 팽창으로 인해 선원 부족 문제에 직면하였다. 영국 선주들은 이에 대해 척당 선원 수를 줄이고, 선원의 임금을 올려줌으로써 해결하고자 했다. 18세기가 경과하는 동안 영국 상선의 척당 선원 수는 지속적으로 감소하였다. 1710년 100톤급 선박 1 척당 22-23명이던 선원수는 1810년에는 5명으로 급감하였다. 이처럼 척당 선원 수가 감소한 것은 조타기, 양묘기, 권양기 등의 기계가 도입되고, 선박과 범장의 개량이 꾸준히 이루어졌기 때문이다. 게다가 18세기 내내 단속적으로 전쟁이 계속되었기 때문에 선주들로서는 적은 선원으로 선박을 운항할 수 있는 방법을 강구하지 않을 수 없었다. 또한 선주들은 임금을 올려줌으로써 선원들을 해상 생활로 유인하고자 했다. 18세기 중엽25실링에 불과했던 선원의 임금은 프랑스혁명전쟁기에 이르면 5-10파운드까지 치솟았다. 척당 선원 수가 감소하고 선원의 임금이 꾸준히 상승한 것은 전쟁이 지속된 18세기에 영국의 선주들이 급변하는 해운 환경에 적절히 대응한 결과였다고 할 수 있다. The eighteenth century in Great Britain was the period of transformation, Great Britain externally experienced several wars intermittently mid internally transformed into the industrial country in the course of the 18th century. British shipowners were faced with short of seamen mainly due to several wars and expansion of shipping tonnage British shipowners tried to solve the mooing problem by decreasing the number of seamen from 22-23 sailors per ship of 100 tonnage in 1710's to 5 in 1810 and increasing seamen's wage from shillings per common seaman per month in the 17th century to 25 shillings in the middle of the 18th century and equation omitted during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. What caused and resulted by specialized shipowners to cope with changeable market situation with flexibility was decrease of the number of seamen per ship and increase of wage.

Accounting for managerial decision making in British shipping, 1870–1918

The paper explores cost-accounting methods employed by British shipowners during the period in which large-scale enterprise initially emerged in theindustry. The findings reveal that shipowners employed what were by international standards relatively advanced techniques to control intra-unit operations. However, the unique characteristics of their systems, especially those governing inter-unit flows, were conditioned by network-based co-operative patterns of behaviour that arose within the merchant community. The article suggests that analyses of institutional development should include informal as well as formal systems, and should consider the formative influence of social and cultural forces.

64thers, Syndicates, and Stock Promotions: Information Flows and Fund-raising Techniques of British Shipowners Before 1914

Analysis of British capital market operations before 1914 has focused on institutional and investor behavior without fully considering entrepreneurial conduct. Consequently, those who argue that industrial performance was impaired because capital flows were obstructed by information blockages have overlooked the role company owners could play in shaping communication lines. The fund-raising techniques used by shipowners reveal that private capital attracted through preferential communication channels supported the rise of large-scale enterprise. Founders were not motivated by supply constraints, nor did they forego profits to retain control. Rather, shipowners created asymmetric information flows to attract resources and shape institutional development.

Sealife: The UK Merchant Shipping Industry's Manpower Development Programme —

Introduction Nearly six years ago British shipowners got together with the seafarers' unions and the government to launch a joint programme. They named it “Sealife”. Its aim was and is to help shipping companies to recruit and hold on to the ratings and officers they need to man their ships. It has turned out to be, at least, an interesting exercise in the consultative reform of an industry's manpower practices and it is far from finished.

The Argonauts Civic and Political Club: An Early Attempt at Industrial Group Organisation in Western Australia, 1925-1930

In Australia, between the two world wars, there was a tendency for strikes that originated as disputes between trade unions and employers to develop into struggles between the unions on the one hand and the Arbitration Courts and the Government on the other. The Federal Government made various disciplinary attempts which applied in particular to transport workers; and during the 1920s there was a running battle between seamen and waterside workers, and the State. From 1919-1924, the Australian Seamen's Union, under the militant leadership of its President, Tom Walsh, and its Secretary, Jacob John son, called a number of minor stoppages over wages, accommodation, management of ships, dangerous practices and many other items. These stoppages were frequently confined to a single ship and often lasted only a few hours or days. By 1924 such tactics had won a substantial increase in wages for the union's members. However, in 1925 a major strike occurred when British shipowners reduced seamen's wages from ?11 to ?10 a month. The Secretary of the British Seamen's Union accepted the reduction, but was repudiated by the men, who began a world-wide strike. British seamen began to walk off their ships in Aust ralian ports, and the Australian Seamen's Union refused to man the idle ships. Indeed, Tom Walsh and Jacob Johnson became the leaders of the British strikers in Australia. Because of the involvement of the Australian Seamen's Union in the British strike, the Arbitration Court deregistered the union early in 1925, which meant that the wage increases earlier won by the Aust ralian Seamen's Union and incorporated in a new award in 1924, now no longer applied. This led the Australian Seamen's Union to call a complete strike in an endeavour to force shipowners to include the conditions of the 1924 award in the terms of employment to seamen. Mr. Stanley Bruce, the Nationalist Prime Minister, believed that the effect of this waterfront unrest on Australia's economy was cata strophic:

The Glenearn (No. 2).

Prize Law — Condemnation of Cargo — Claim for Freight of Condemned Goods — Right of British Shipowners to Compensation by the Crown in Lieu of Freight — Award based on a Pro Rata Itineris.

The Sperm Whale and its Food

OUR fund of accurate knowledge of the Cetacea being at so low a level, it is to be deplored that trained scientific observers have hitherto had few opportunities for noting under normal conditions the habits of these most interesting animals. And therefore naturalists generally will certainly hail with delight the news of the resolution of the Prince of Monaco to endeavour by all the means at his disposal to make an effective study of that least understood of all the deep sea mammalia—the great sperm whale. An observer like Dr. Scoresby who, while gaining his livelihood by the pursuit of the Greenland whale, lost no opportunity of studying that monster's manners and customs for the benefit of science generally, is still to seek for the world-wide fishery of the cachalot. This may be said without in the least minimising the excellent work done by Surgeons Beale and Bennett, who remain almost the only first-hand authorities we have on the sperm whale. They were not in command, and were consequently at a great disadvantage for making observations; for the whole crew of a whaleship are co-partners in the venture, and the essential business of oil-getting must on no account be hindered, or there is trouble all around. And since their day, unfortunately, British shipowners have had little or no interest in the southern whale fishery, while none who know what a motley crowd constitute the crews of American whalers, will be surprised that no contributions to natural history come from that quarter. I am the more pleased, therefore, that in the course of my career as a seaman, it happened that I was induced some twenty-one years ago to join a whaleship in New Zealand for a long cruise in the Southern and Eastern seas. All the average sailors' usual ignorance of the differing characteristics of different whales was mine; but so interesting did I find the study of these great denizens of the deep sea, under my extended acquaintance with them, that I seized every chance I could obtain to learn wrhatever I could of them, without any idea at the time of putting the knowledge so gained to any practical use. The first occasion worthy of note here was also my initial encounter with a cachalot. We were cruising the wide stretch of ocean in the South Pacific known as the “Vasquez” grounds, and sighted a small pod of sperm whales, mostly sprightly young cows, under the guardianship of two or three immense bulls. We lowered four boats, and very soon the boat in which I happened to be “fastened” a medium-sized cow, who promptly returned the compliment by rising bodily beneath the boat and ripping the bottom out of it with her hump. Of course our connection with that whale was at once severed, the task of keeping our heads above water, with our boat hardly more than a bundle of loose planks beneath us, being amply sufficient to occupy all our energies until we were rescued. In the meantime the second mate had successfully harpooned and slaughtered another and much larger whale very near to us—so near, in fact, that we weltered in a gory sea lashed into foam by the monster's dying struggles.