AW Ship Management
| AW Ship Management (Andrew Weir Shipping) |
|
|---|---|
| legal form | Limited |
| founding | 1885 |
| Seat |
 London
|
| Branch | Shipping company |
| Website | www.awshipmanagement.com |
| As of October 29, 2017 | |
AW Ship Management , until 2014 Andrew Weir Shipping (Bank Line) , is a shipping company founded in 1885 and based in London . In 2014, the original company was dissolved due to over-indebtedness and re-established under a new name.
history
Andrew Weir (1865–1955), later Lord Inverforth, acquired Bark Willowbank in 1885 and founded a shipping company in Glasgow , Scotland , which has since grown into one of the largest British shipping companies in Great Britain .
In 1896 the shipping company Weir put its first steamship into operation, but did not sell the last freighter operated by it until 1912.
In 1905 the shipping company was renamed Bank Line and its headquarters moved to London. However, the home port of the operated ships remained Glasgow.
During the war, Andrew Weir organized supplies for the British Army; after the war he worked from 1919 to 1921 as minister of ammunition for the return, recycling and disposal of war material.
Together with the Copenhagen shipping company Det Østasiatiske Kompagni , Weir founded the United Baltic Corporation in 1919 , in which both parties were equally involved. This politically desired action served to stabilize the independence of the young Baltic states .
In 1920, the company entered the oil tanker business and founded the British-Mexican Petroleum Company for this purpose. Ten years later, Weir was the sole owner of the company, which later became the Anglo-American Oil Company. From 1923, the shipping company also began building a fleet of lake tankers . At the same time, Bank Line put the first motor ships into service for its Rangoon - South America service, which offered space for twelve first class passengers, twenty second and 400 emigrants.
The French subsidiary Cie. Venture-Weir SA, Paris, was founded in 1925 to set up a liner service between Antwerp, Dunkirk, Le Havre, Bordeaux and the West African ports, but operated as a tanker shipping company from 1928. Also in 1925, Weir founded the shipping company Lago Shipping Company to bring crude oil from Lake Maracaibo to the oil refineries in Aruba , but in 1936 gave this part of the company to FJ Wolfe. In 1933 the line service of the shipping company Bullard, King & Company was taken over from Calcutta , Rangoon and Colombo to South Africa, which Weir made known as India Natal Line. The ships of this line offered space for 50 passengers in the first and 20 in the second class, as well as 500 very simple seats. In 1935 the shipping company MacAndrews & Company was incorporated into the United Baltic Corporation, which also took over their liner service to Spain.
During the Second World War, the company lost a number of ships to enemy action, which in the 1940s and early 1950s made an extensive new building and modernization program necessary. In particular, the Harland & Wolff and William Doxford & Sons shipyards supplied entire series of new motor ships . In addition, Weir acquired twelve Liberty ships from the United States and a number of other ships from other shipping companies.
Under the leadership of Lord Inverforth the company expanded its business lines as ship's insurers , underwriters and shipping agents from. Trade was also expanded, especially in raw materials such as nitrates , coal, oil and grain, for which a network of offices, agencies and subsidiaries was built up around the world.
Because of his business reputation, Andrew Weir was elected President of the Institute of Marine Engineers and one of the few honorary members of the Baltic Exchange . Weir finally died on September 17, 1955. Lord Inverforth and Weir's grandsons Roy and Vincent continued the business.
Andrew Weir Shipping (AWSL) was voluntarily wound up in late 2014 as part of a restructuring to settle debts with the Merchant Navy Officers Pension Fund (MNOPF). The new company AW Ship Management emerged from the liquidation through a management buyout . Half of it belongs to the former management of AWSL and the other half to the London shipping company Hadley Shipping (RoRo) Limited, a subsidiary of Hadley Shipping.
literature
- Appleyard, HS: Bank Line and Andrew Weir and Company . World Ship Society, Kendal 1985, ISBN 0-905617-34-7 .
Web links
- Homepage of Andrew Weir (English)
- Andrew Weir at Ocean Liner Museum (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ W. Paul Clegg (Ed.): British Shipping . Ian Allan Ltd, Shepperton 1988, ISBN 0-7110-1787-5 .
- ↑ Andrew Weir Group Announces Sale of Shipping Line , St Helena Government, November 21, 2014.