An Engine of Commerce

1
An Engine of Commerce?

• Play with your fancies, and in them behold
• Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing
• Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
• To sounds confused behold the threaden sails,
• Borne with thinvisible and creeping wind,
• Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
• Breasting the lofty surge.

2
Steam Technology and Global Maritime Trade,
1860-1910 Studies in Success and Failure
3
British Shipping Total Net Tonnage
4
Steam Tonnage Entering/Clearing UK Ports
5
Increases in Steam Pressure (lbs/sq inch)
6
The North Atlantic Passenger Trade
7
Blue Riband of the Atlantic Holders
8
RMS Mauretania, 1907-1935

• Built 1907
• On launch largest moving man-made object
  (16,000 tons) yet built
• Service tonnage 31,500 gross tons
• Dimensions 790 ft long x 88 ft wide
• Engines 4 x direct drive steam turbines
• Daily coal consumption 1,320 tons
• Passengers 563 1st, 464 2nd, 1,138 3rd
• Crew 816
• Fastest crossing 4 days, 17 ½ hours (27.2
  knots)
• Total career 318 Atlantic voyages, 1.5 m
  nautical miles

9
Mauretania Lusitania

• 1st liners to exceed 700 ft in length
• 1st liners to exceed 30,000 gross tons
• 1st liners to cross Atlantic in less than 5 days
• 1st liners to cross Atlantic at more than 25 26
  knots
• Mauretania the last steam-driven liner to hold
  the Blue Riband 1907-1929

10
Allan Line Losses, 1957-1864
11
Staggering Along with the State Line
12
The Antipodes A Tale of Gold Sheep
13
Failure Success in the Antipodes-UK Trade
14
Cutty Sark Freight Loaded, Sydney NSW for UK,
1885
15
Romance Ruin in the China Tea Trade
16
Glen Line, Ship Investment Return, 1873-1881
17
Freight Rates, Far East-UK (shillings/ton)
18
Tonights Quiz

• A 2,800 ton/compound-engined steamer arrives at
  the entrance to a British port with a cargo of
  cotton from Galveston some time between 1897 and
  1910

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Can You Guess.

• 1. When she was built
• 1860s
• 1870s
• 1880s
• 1890s
• 2. Where she was owned/managed
• Bilbao/Liverpool
• Brisbane/London
• Boston/Leeds
• Buenos Aires/Llanelli

• 3. What she was called
• Nile
• Nagoya
• Nanking
• Niceto
• 4. Where she was arriving
• London
• Liverpool
• Manchester
• Glasgow

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Coal Out Grain Home
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T Dunlop Sons Ship Acquisition Costs
22
T Dunlop Sons Profitability, Sail vs Steam
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Cardiff Fixture List, 15 June 1904
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SS Iona Chief Engineers Log, 1889-90 (1)
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SS Iona Chief Engineers Log, 1889-90 (2)
26
UK Grain Imports (million tons)
27
Tramp Steamers Size Carrying Capacity
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Bulk Freight Rates (shillings/ton)
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Freight Rates Building Costs
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Tonights Quiz Answers

• 1. (C) Built 1884
• 2. (A) Owned in Bilbao/Managed in Liverpool
• 3. (D) Named Niceto
• 4. (C) Entering the Manchester Ship Canal

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Closing Thoughts
32
Romantic but Wrong Repulsive but Right

• As oer the moon, fast fly the amber veils,
• For one dear hour lets fling the knots behind,
• And hear again, thro cordage and thro sails,
• The vigour of the voices of the wind.
• Theyre gone, the Clyde-built darlings, like a
  dream,
• Regrets are vain, and sighs shall not avail,
• Yet, mid the clatter and the rush of steam,
• How strangely memory veers again to sail!