Union Steam Ship Company

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Company founder James Mills around 1887
A Union Steam Ship Company ship, the 3.721 ton Kaimiro loading in Lyttelton (1968)

The Union Steam Ship Company (USS Co) was a New Zealand shipping company. It is not the same as the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia or the Union Steamship Company (Great Britain) .

history

The company was founded in Dunedin in 1875 by James Mills , who was previously an employee of Johnny Jones' Harbor Steam Company .

After Jones' death, Mills founded the company with the support of Peter Denny , who in return gave orders for his shipyard in Dumbarton , Scotland . The Union Company became an important shipping line and held almost a monopoly position for shipping via Tasmania to Australia. For this it was nicknamed "Southern Octopus".

Since 1889 there has been competition between three parties, the Union Steamship Company, Huddart Parker and the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company (TSNCo) for the Tasmanian routes ( Melbourne - Launceston , Hobart - Melbourne and Hobart - Sydney ). The TSNCo could not compensate for its losses on these routes by other routes and was bought by the USS Co in 1891.

The competition between the USSCo and Huddart Parker lasted until 1895, despite the agreements made in 1893. They undercut each other with dumping prices, ships of both companies chased from port to port in order to evade the competition. The ships Rotomahana and Mararoa of the USSCo accompanied Parker's Miowra and Warrimoo , other ships such as the Te Anau and Manapouri sailed the same route before and after Parker ships and thus caught them in a pincer. According to an agreement of 1895, the two companies shared the profits and losses on the Auckland-Sydney route, 4/7 of the profits on the Melbourne-Launceston route went to the USSCo and 3/7 to Huddart Parker. Passenger traffic between Sydney and Hobart was excluded from the agreement, 2/3 of the freight and livestock transport went to the USSCo and 1/3 to Parker.

After New Zealand's economy recovered from the economic depression of the late 19th century in the early 20th century, Mills faced competition from other companies that were more efficient with their modern 500-tonne ships imported from Great Britain or Holland than Mills did with his small steamships. Mills solved the problem by secretly buying up shares in the competition: in 1906 he bought half of the shares in the Canterbury Steam Shipping Company and the Squall steamer from George Niccol . In 1908 the Union Company bought shares in the Anchor Shipping and Foundry Company in Nelson and the Maoriland Steam Ship Company . In 1912 Mills bought major shares in Richardson & Company of Napier. This gave Mills control with Parker control of sea trade and he controlled or owned, with the exception of the insignificant Northern Steam Ship Company, also the coastal shipping companies. Mark Twain attacked the poor conditions aboard the Union Company's ship Flora in chapter 32 of his 1897 travel book Following the Equator . He criticized the abuse of the monopoly position to the strong overcrowding of the ships with passengers and poor security measures. The owners are morally guilty of conspiracy to commit murder because of their behavior. Twain left the ship at the nearest port to find another ship.

The focus of business shifted in these years. Since the newly emerging railway lines caused passenger shipping to decline, they switched to coal and freight transport, isolating traffic to the regions of Nelson and West Coast at the time. For the latter routes, new passenger ships were bought at the end of the 1890s.

The company's "flagship" was the ferry service over the Cook Strait between Wellington and Lyttelton. The old ships used at the beginning were replaced by the modern 19 knot Maori in 1907 . In 1913, the 4,436 tons of displacing, with 20.5 knots faster came Wahine . The company dubbed the ferry connection as an "express connection". During the 7 decades in which the company operated ferry services between the islands, several ships were used, two each with the names "Maori", "Wahine" and "Rangatira" as well as the "Hinemoa". These ships were well known in New Zealand.

More modern ships were also procured on the route to Australia from the end of the 1890s. The new ships with a displacement of 3,500 to 4,500 tons replaced the ships from the 1880s with around half the displacement. The new ships had names like "Waikare", "Mokoia" and "Moeraki".

In 1905, the company acquired the “Maheno”, one of the world's first passenger ships with a steam turbine drive , which displaced 5,282 tons . The small and old ships, including sailing ships, continued to be used for traffic with the Pacific islands, where regular services were not economical. Exceptions were the new and larger ships "Navua" and the "Atua" from the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1917 Mills sold the company to the British P&O Line .

Wellington-born founder Mills was knighted in 1907 and Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George in 1909 . From 1907 he was a British citizen and died in London.

The company has operated more than 350 ships in the years of its existence. In 1990 she was still operating seven ships and was also active in shipping, tourism, real estate business and more.

In 1936, the company founded the Union Airways of NZ Ltd from East Coast Airways and Cook Strait Airways , which had been bought up in the two years before, New Zealand's first major aviation company. This was nationalized in 1947 to the National Airways Corporation .

In 2000, the Union Bulk boat made the company's last voyage.

Union Company ships

literature

Web links

Commons : Union Steam Ship Company  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ McLean: The Southern Octopus . 1990, 4 - Aussie Rules, pp. 49-66 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Gavin McLean: Shipping - The Union Company expands. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, July 13, 2012, accessed December 17, 2015 .
  3. ^ Mark Twain: Following the Equator. Samuel L. Clemens, Hartford (Connecticut) 1897. ( online at Project Gutenberg )