Harrison Line

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The British shipping company Harrison Line existed from 1853 to 2000.

history

The first 50 years

The Harrison Line dates back to 1853 when brothers Thomas and James Harrison took over the shipping and ship broking business from George Brown and Harrison. Until 1853, the company mainly dealt with the import of wine and brandy from the Charente to Liverpool. The French schooners used also ran occasionally to Oporto and Cádiz .

In 1857 the young company bought its first iron ship, the Philosopher . This was built at the Thomas Vernon shipyard in Liverpool and measured at 1329 space tons. The ship was used exclusively in India trade until it was stranded on September 26, 1879. The Philosopher was of interest not only because it was a very early iron ship, but also because of its name, which began a shipping line tradition of naming ships in the Harrison fleet after professional titles.

From 1860 Harrison expanded his shipping area to Brazil , India and the Caribbean. In the same year the shipping company also put the steam-powered sister ships Cognac and Gladiator into service in order to cope with the increased import of brandy from France . At that time the shipping company had 25 sailing and steam ships with a volume of around 21,000 tons. In the same decade, John William Hughes joined the company as a partner, whose family was of great importance for the subsequent development of the shipping company.

In 1884 the Charente Steam-Ship Co. Ltd. was founded with a capital of 512,000 pounds. to that of Thos. and Jas. Harrison-operated steamship company. Three years later, the Senator, the last sailing ship, was sold. Thomas Harrison died in 1888, and his son Thomas Fenwick also entered the shipping business. A year later Harrison acquired the Star Line shipping company from Rathbone Bros. and Company for £ 135,000 to strengthen his position in Calcutta and in the tea trade. For this purpose, the shipping company was taken over with all conference rights and agreements , as well as the fleet of four steamers and a construction contract. The ships Mira , Vesta , Pallas and Orion, built between 1875 and 1889 , as well as the Capella , which was under construction , were remarkably even continued to work under their old names. James Harrison also died in 1891, whose sons Frederick James and Heath also succeeded in the business.

1900 to 1945

In 1911 Harrison bought the "Aberdeen Direct Line", which was managed by "John T. Rennie Son and Company". Two years later, the shipping company was able to receive the passenger and cargo ship Ingoma, measured at 5686 tons, from the D. and W. Henderson and Company shipyard in Glasgow . It was used on the South African service of the "Harrison-Rennie Line" and was driven under Rennie colors with a mast-yellow funnel and a gray hull. Through the following First World War the three ships Inanda , Intaha and Ingoma switched to Harrison's London-Caribbean service, whereby the "Rennie Line" was terminated.

After the end of the war, the shipping company began to rebuild its fleet and for the first time used steam turbine propulsion for the ships Dramatist , Diplomat and Huntsman , but this turned out to be too expensive due to its high fuel consumption, whereupon Harrisons did not order any further turbine ships . In the 1920s Harrison built his London and Glasgow services to the Caribbean and Guyana by purchasing eight ships from "Prentice, Service and Hendersons" Glasgow Crown Line and five more from "Scrutton, Sons and Company" of London out.

The four sister ships Royal Prince , Imperial Prince , British Prince and London Merchant , which were acquired by Furness, Withy and Company in 1935 and renamed Collegian , Craftsman , Statesman and Politician , represented a further expansion of the fleet . This quartet of 14  knot fast 8000 BRT turbine ships was built in 1922/23 for the Furness North Atlantic Service and was brought into service by Harrisons on the South Africa service operated jointly with Ellerman Line and Clan Line . In 1935, the shipping company acquired a further seven North Atlantic cargo ships from the Leyland Line , which were used to expand the Caribbean-Mexico service. Also in 1935 Harrisons launched the first ships with cruiser stern with the Inventor and the Explorer .

When war broke out in September 1939, Harrisons owned 45 ships, 29 of which were lost to the war by 1945. Right at the beginning of the war, the shipping company lost one of its largest ships, the Huntsman . The Huntsman was on the voyage from Calcutta to London on October 10, 1939, when she was sunk by the German warship Admiral Graf Spee .

post war period

In the years 1945 to 1949 Harrisons replaced his war losses by purchasing ten American Liberty ships and six British Empire ships , which proved themselves well in the following years. The first post-war new build was the turbine ship Biographer , which was delivered in 1949 and was only sold to Panama in 1964 . The fleet expansion continued over the next few years. In 1960 Harrison received the Adventurer, the first British ship with a Stülcken heavy lift boom - the design was similar to contemporary heavy lift ships from DDG Hansa . The type ship Adventurer was followed in 1961/62 by two almost identical units, the Custodian and Tacitian . In 1968 the two ships, the Magician and Historian , which are particularly suitable for Africa, were put into service. The 18-knot ships with 150-ton stilted heavy-lift boom were built at the Sunderlander Pallion shipyard of the Doxford and Sunderland Shipbuilding and Engineering Company and were measured at 8,454 GRT.

In 1973 Harrisons began building the three bulk carriers Wanderer , Wayfarer and Warrior to diversify its shipping areas . The ships built in Japan were measured at 16,317 GRT and carried 27,135 tons. The success of these ships led to the ordering of two even larger bulk carriers ( strategist and specialist ) from the Danish shipyard Burmeister and Wain .

In 1977 Harrisons joined the Caribbean Overseas Lines (CAROL) consortium started by Hapag-Lloyd and the Koninklijke Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij as part of the containerization of the Caribbean trade area . After the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM) joined the CAROL service in 1978, it offered weekly departures from Bremerhaven , Hamburg , Amsterdam , Antwerp , Tilbury , Le Havre and Liverpool . At around the same time, the containerization of the Europe-South Africa Service (SAECS Service) began. Harrisons worked here as a smaller partner of the competitor Ellerman Lines in the construction of the container ship City of Durban . The ship was built at Bremer Werft AG Weser and was used in the jointly operated service of Ellerman-Harrison Container Lines.

The last ship built by Harrisons was the Author, completed in December 1980 . She was later chartered as Benarmin from Barclays Mercantile Industrial Finance to the Ben Line , with Harrisons taking over management.

During the Falklands War in 1982 Harrison's looked Astronomer with. The container ship was provided with a helicopter flight deck by the British government and used as the Reliant auxiliary ship / helicopter base of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and sold to Panama in 1986. Also in 1982 Harrison's acquired the Hong Kong- based shipping company Blairdale Shipping with the two ships Lamma Forest and Lantau Trader from Charles Connell & Company .

In 1983 Harrison's fleet shrank so much that a third of the seafaring personnel was made redundant. The City of Durban was also taken out of the South Africa Europe Container Service and chartered to Overseas Containers Limited and later passed on to Associated Container Transportation , where it was used as the ACT 8 .

In 1984 Harrisons took over the management of the two newbuildings Pisces Pioneer and Pisces Planter of the Hong Kong shipping company "Crossfish Limited". In the following year Harrison chartered his advisers to the French shipping company CGM, which it used as CGM Provence between South Africa and the Gulf of Mexico . In 1987 the fleet of the "Charente Steamship Company" sank to three of its own ships, the Author , Warrior and Advisor , but rose again to ten units in 1988.

In October 2000 "Thos J. Harrison Ltd" ceded the liner business on behalf of the "Charente Steamship Company" completely to P&O Nedlloyd , with which the "Harrison Line" disappeared for good.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ambrose Greenway: New heavy-lift ships , In: Cargo Liners: An Illustrated History , Seaforth Publishing, 2012, p. 148.