General Steam Navigation Company
The General Steam Navigation Company (GSN) was a British shipping company founded in 1824 and one of the oldest steam shipping companies in the world. For 150 years it was London's predominant shipping company in short-line service, specializing in ports in Great Britain and Northwest Europe. She was also the pioneer in excursion traffic between London and the Lower Thames and the English Channel ports .
history
1824-1914
The GSN began operations in 1824, with two weekly crossings of the English Channel between Brighton and Dieppe with two 25 m long side paddle steamers . The crossing took 9 hours. The company was the first to provide a regular canal crossing service for freight and passengers with steam-powered ships. Very soon she also took up passenger and freight services on the Thames, the English Channel and the North Sea as well as to Bordeaux , Lisbon and Gibraltar . In 1836 the GSN took over the London & Edinburgh Steam Packet Co. with their six steamers. Also in 1836 the GSN, which already operated a regular service between London and Rotterdam , took part in the “Steamship Company for the Lower and Middle Rhine” founded in Düsseldorf that year .
In 1882 the service began in Mediterranean ports . Some trips to West Africa were made in 1894, but this service was discontinued as early as 1895. From 1894 to 1901 ports in North and South America and the Gulf of Mexico were also served.
1914-1939
The shipping company lost 23 ships in the First World War , and after the end of the war an extensive newbuilding program began. In 1919 the Humber -London service of G. R. Haller Ltd. was bought. and the London- Gent service of Leach & Co.
In 1920 the GSN was taken over by P&O Steam Navigation , which, however, let the GSN continue to operate independently under its own management. A new company, Great Yarmouth Shipping Co., was jointly established by P&O and GSN to operate the liner service between London and Great Yarmouth via Lowestoft and Hull . The Rhine-London Line was acquired in 1931 , the London & Dunkirk Shipping Co. in 1933. In 1934, the Moss Hutchison Line from Liverpool with its Mediterranean service was acquired after the Royal Mail Lines group, to which it had belonged, had been liquidated. With the takeover of the New Medway Steam Packet Co. in 1936, the GSN obtained the monopoly for excursions on the Thames. In 1937 the subsidiary Grand Union Shipping Co. was founded, and in 1939 substantial shares were acquired in Turner, Edwards & Co. in Bristol , which was soon taken over in full.
1939-1945
In the Second World War , the GSN and its daughters lost 21 ships that were replaced by newbuildings after the war. Among the losses was the excursion paddle steamer Crested Eagle (1078 GRT) built by Samuel White in Cowes in 1925 , which had provided the route London- Ramsgate and later the service from London to Southend , Clacton and Felixstowe , and the one in Operation Dynamo , the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk was sunk by bomb hits. The Royal Daffodil (2060 GRT) built by William Denny & Brothers in 1939 was also used for the evacuation; it brought a total of 9,500 Allied troops back to England on seven trips . The tour paddle steamer Royal Eagle (1539 BRT, built in 1932 at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead ), which had carried holidaymakers between London and the coastal towns of Southend, Clacton, Margate and Ramsgate, made three trips to Dunkirk and brought back 2,600 men.
1945–1972
As air travel continued to expand, GSN's passenger numbers declined in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition, there was stiff competition from the ferry service from Tilbury to Calais , which opened in 1965, from the modern Stena Line car ferries . The GSN ships were then withdrawn from canal service at the end of the 1966 season. When Normandy Ferries Co. was founded in 1967, GSN was its UK partner, but it ceased operations after a few years. At the same time, GSN's freight volume also fell, partly due to rising port fees in the UK. The Great Yarmouth Shipping Co. and the Grand Union Shipping Co. ceased operations in 1970/71. In 1972 GSN was completely taken over by P&O Line and disappeared as an independent shipping company.
annotation
The General Steam Navigation Company should not be confused with the General Steam Navigation Company of Greece (marketed under the name Greek Line ), a shipping company founded by Basil Goulandris in 1939 , which operated transatlantic traffic from Greece . With the gradual displacement of the passenger service by airlines, the Greek Line shifted increasingly to cruises. The company got into trouble in the 1970s and went into liquidation in 1975 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ portcities.org.uk
- ↑ The ship made pleasure trips to France until 1966 and was broken up in the Netherlands in 1967.
- ↑ The ship was scrapped in 1953.