Anchor line
The Anchor Line was a Scottish shipping company operating from 1856 to 1986.
history
The first years
The beginnings of Anchor Line Ltd were around 1838 when the two brothers Nicol and Robert Handyside began in Glasgow to be active in trade and as a ship broker. They chartered tonnage and traded with the Baltic States and Russia . Nicol was the Russian consul in Glasgow at the time. The first name of the company that other than its own stores, the ships of the Glasgow & Lisbon Steam Packet Co. plant, was N & R Handyside & Co .
The anchor line is taking shape
The term anchor line was first used in 1852 , but only as a subordinate clause in an advertisement. However, it can be seen as the first indication of the change to a shipping company with its own ships. That same year, Thomas Henderson, a former captain from Fife , Scotland, also entered the business. He brought the idea to the company to take up transatlantic steamship services. After the shipping company acquired its first ship of its own in 1854, Henderson became a full partner in June 1855. The shipping company was founded in 1856 as Handysides & Henderson , which had one of the shipping company's first clippers converted into a steamship . In the same year, he took up the Anchor Line's first Atlantic service from Glasgow to New York . However, the new service was suspended for two years from the following year because the steamship was lost. First two other ships were chartered to bring troops to India to suppress an uprising.
Also in 1857 the brother of the last partner, John Henderson, joined the shipping company. Two other brothers, David and William founded the Finnieston Steamship Works Co. in Finnieston, Glasgow, to build steam engines for converting existing sailing ships. When both also started with shipbuilding, it became the shipyard D. & W. Henderson & Company .
Resumption of the Glasgow-New-York service
In 1859 the Glasgow-New-York service was resumed with two ships, followed by a third in 1860. When the Glasgow & Lisbon Steam Packet Co. ceased operations in 1863, the Anchor Line of Peninsular & Mediterranean Steam Packets also took over this service. At the end of the same year, Nicol Handyside retired from the company, which then changed its name to Handyside & Henderson . In 1865 the company opened its first own Anchor Line office in New York under the name Henderson Brothers and marketed its crossings from there in more than 3000 agencies throughout North America. The next office opened in Londonderry. Henderson Brothers agencies in Liverpool and Dundee followed in 1869, as well as a new service between Naples and New York. When the Suez Canal was opened in November 1869 , the lines to India gained in importance. An Anchor Line ship was the first British merchant ship to cross the Suez Canal the day after its opening.
remodeling
In 1872 the Barrow Steamship Co. was founded in partnership with the Duke of Devonshire. This worked closely with the Anchor Line and the two shipping companies also exchanged ships with each other. Also in 1872 the Anchor Line bought together with D & W Henderson the shipyard of Tod & MacGregor in Meadowside, Partick / Glasgow, in order to install machines from D & W Henderson's Finnieston Works in existing ships. A year later, Robert Handyside left the company, after which the Anchor Line was determined exclusively by the Henderson brothers. They opened an office in Manchester in 1882. During the 1890s, all four Henderson brothers died and the company lost its importance due to the lack of leadership. In 1899 the Anchor Line (Henderson Bros) Ltd was formed as a limited company and the shares in the Tod & MacGregor shipyard and D & W Henderson were sold.
Cunard Line
The Cunard Steamship Company Ltd acquired the regular corporate capital of the Anchor Line (Henderson Bros) Ltd in 1911 and, after adjusting individual positions in the respective administrative bodies, matched the coloring of the anchor ships to those of the Cunard ships. In the following year, a collaboration with the Liverpool-based shipping company T & J Brocklebank began . With the Calcutta service of the Brocklebank Line, a joint service to India known as Anchor-Brocklebank was started. At the beginning of the First World War they had thirteen ships, seven of which were lost during the war. In 1916 there was a collaboration with the shipping company Donaldson Brothers , from which another community service called Anchor Donaldson Ltd from the River Clyde to Canada emerged .
When the Anchor Line (Henderson Bros) Ltd became insolvent in May 1935 due to the decline in trade as a result of the global economic crisis , as well as the restrictions of the US government, and was then dissolved, Runciman (London) Ltd rose again Capital into the company and continued with Lord Runciman as chairman of the newly formed Anchor Line (1935) Ltd. The two jointly operated companies Anchor-Donaldson and Anchor-Brocklebank were bought out by their respective partners, but ceased to exist and the business relationship with Cunard was also ended from 1935. Anchor Line (1935) Ltd focused on their New York and India services. By 1937 the company name was again adapted to Anchor Line Ltd. When World War II began, the Anchor Line had nine ships and one under construction, six of which were lost in the fighting.
post war period
After the United Molasses Company (Athel Line) took over the majority stake in 1949, it became the sole owner of the Anchor Line until 1953. The independent Transatlatik passenger service was given up in 1956 and in 1960 the Anchor-Cunard began a new bi-weekly London – Le Havre – Glasgow – USA joint service. United Molasses Co. became a subsidiary of Tate & Lyle in 1965, which then sold the Anchor Line to Moor Line Ltd from Newcastle-on-Tyne, which belonged to Runciman & Co from Newcastle upon Tyne, and which in turn later sold a number of their Moor Line- Ships incorporated into the Anchor Line. As early as 1966, Walter Runciman & Co Ltd was taken over by Moor Line, the joint headquarters relocated to Glasgow and the passenger service to India ended. In 1968 the common name was changed to Walter Runciman & Co Ltd and the entire fleet was transferred to Anchor Line Ship Management Ltd. The day-to-day business was henceforth done by Runciman Shipping Ltd and the Glasgow-USA service was finally given up. Instead, Cunard Brocklebank Ltd acted from Braeside, Renfrew, Renfrewshire as the agency and container service operator for the Glasgow service of the Atlantic Container Line . In 1969 the Currie Line from Leith and the associated fleet were acquired, and in 1972 the shipping company George Gibson, also based in Leith, was added.
It is true that the Anchor Line Company Ltd was transformed into the sole owner company within the Runciman Group in 1976, the individual companies Anchor Line Eastern Services Ltd (for the east-facing freight business), Anchor Line Ship Management Ltd (which deals with bulk carriers and other ships employed), the Currie Line Ltd (for the European services, charter ships, storage and land logistics), the George Gibson & Co Ltd (for the gas tanker fleet) and the Runciman Shipping Ltd (administration), but as early as 1986 it owned only five liquid gas tankers , However, which were managed by Gibson & Co. from Leith, the Anchor Line is no longer run as an independent shipping company at this point in time.
In 2005, Anchor Line Eastern Services Ltd, Anchor Line Ship Management Ltd and George Gibson & Co Ltd were still active.
List of liner services
| Overview of the line services operated by the Anchor Line (selection) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Period | route | Remarks | |
| 1850-1863 | Glasgow - Lisbon - Gibraltar | ||
| 1854-1861 | Glasgow - Valparaiso | Sailing ships | |
| 1855-1869 | Glasgow - Cape Town - Mauritius - Bombay | ||
| 1856-1956 | Glasgow - Belfast (from 1929) - Moville (from 1866) - New York | Passenger service | |
| 1856-1967 | Glasgow - New York | Cargo shipping | |
| 1859-1865 | Glasgow - Quebec - Montreal | ||
| 1859-1870 | Glasgow - Lisbon - Gibraltar - Mediterranean ports | ||
| 1866-1870 | Glasgow - Algiers - Oran - Alexandria | ||
| 1868-1869 | Granton - Christiansand - Christiania - Gothenburg | Branch line / feeder service | |
| 1869-1872 | Granton - Christiansand - Gothenburg | Branch line / feeder service | |
| 1869-1872 | Granton - Christiania | Branch line / feeder service | |
| 1869-1922 | Naples - Palermo - New York | ||
| 1869-1914 | Glasgow - Liverpool - Halifax - St. John, New Brunswick (partly Boston) | ||
| 1870-1894 | Glasgow - Genoa - Naples - Palermo - New York (plus other ports in the Mediterranean and Spain) | ||
| 1870-1977 | Glasgow - Suez - Bombay | Cargo shipping | |
| 1871-1881 | London - Halifax - St. John, New Brunswick (partly Boston) | ||
| 1871-1886 | Glasgow - Trieste - Venice - Glasgow or New York | ||
| 1875-1966 | Glasgow - Suez - Bombay | Passenger service | |
| 1875-1878 | Bordeaux - New York | ||
| 1876-1882 | London - (Halifax) - (Boston) - New York | ||
| 1880-1881 | Barrow - Dublin - New York | ||
| 1881-1891 | Liverpool - New York | ||
| 1882-1912 | Glasgow - (Liverpool) - Calcutta | ||
| 1912-1935 | Glasgow - (Liverpool) - Calcutta | Anchor Brocklebank | |
| 1885-1892 | New York - Jamaica | ||
| 1976-1986 | Far East - Europe | Cargo shipping | |
Web links
- Anchor Line at Oceanlinermuseum (English)
- Anchor Line at The Ships List (English)
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Anchor Line in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ^ Clegg, W. Paul (Ed.): British Shipping . Ian Allan Ltd, Shepperton 1988, ISBN 0-7110-1787-5 .