 | |
| Industry | Ship transport |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1855 |
| Founder | Thomas Henderson |
| Defunct | 1980 |
| Headquarters | Glasgow, Scotland |
| Parent | Cunard Line  |
Anchor Line was a Scottish merchant shipping company that was founded in 1855 and dissolved in 1980.
| | |
| Industry | Ship transport |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1855 |
| Founder | Thomas Henderson |
| Defunct | 1980 |
| Headquarters | Glasgow, Scotland |
| Parent | Cunard Line |
Anchor Line was a Scottish merchant shipping company that was founded in 1855 and dissolved in 1980.
The Anchor Line shipping company grew from small beginnings in tandem with the River Clyde shipbuilding industry as the Glasgow river was transformed. In the 19th century rapid industrialisation the Clyde changed from a shallow meandering river into one of the industrialised world's greatest ports and a hub of shipbuilding and marine engineering expertise.
From the 1880s until the 1940s the company was famous for its sleek ships and the comfort it offered its passengers at a very affordable cost. While not as large or famous as Cunard or P&O, the Anchor Line built up a reputation for value and became well known for employing some of the finest marine artists of the day to create its beautiful posters. It also played on its Scottish roots and employed Scottish crew and cabin crew, advertising "Scottish ships and Scottish crew for Scottish passengers". [1]
The company began in 1855 when Captain Thomas Henderson from Fife became a partner in the shipping agent firm of N & R Handyside & Co, of Glasgow who operated a few sailing vessels. This resulted in the formation of the company Handysides & Henderson with the aim of establishing a New York service. [2]
At first they only operated to India under sail, in 1856 the company advertised it was to begin transatlantic sailings and the sailing ship Tempest was sent to Randolf and Elder, to have 150 horsepower compound steam engines installed [2] In October of that year the first Anchor Line service to New York set sail. Unfortunately, the following year the Tempest was lost at sea. [3] She left New York, commanded by Captain James Morris on 13 February 1857, bound for Glasgow, but was never heard of again. Rumour had it that she had only one passenger aboard. [2]
After some initial struggles however, by 1866 the company was operating weekly sailings from Glasgow and had also initiated services to the Mediterranean, Calcutta and Bombay (once the Suez Canal had opened). In 1873, ownership of the company was completely transferred to the Henderson family, being Thomas, his brother John who had joined the company a few years earlier and their two other brothers, David and William. The brothers lost no time in acquiring a shipyard at Meadowside and it operated under the name D & W Henderson 32 ships for the Anchor Line over several decades. [3]
Despite successes, in the first 50 years of operation more than 20 ships were lost. The worst of these was in 1891 when the Utopia collided with the battleship HMS Anson in harbour at Gibraltar and sank with the loss of more than 500 lives. [4]
Upon the death of the Henderson brothers, towards the end of the 19th century, the company restructured, becoming Anchor Line (Henderson Brothers) Ltd. in 1899, building large new offices on St.Vincent Street, modernising much of its fleet and in 1910 moving its berth to the newly built Yorkhill Quay. Its success drew the attention of the Cunard Line and in 1911 the Anchor Line was effectively taken over and the chairman of Cunard became the chairman of the Anchor Line.
In the First World War Anchor Line lost ships to enemy action including the 10,968 GRT Cameronia, 8,662 GRT California, 14,348 GRT SS Tuscania (1914), and 14,348 GRT Transylvania the following month. In the 1920s they were replaced by the 16,297 GRT RMS Cameronia, 16,923 GRT RMS Transylvania, 16,792 GRT SS California (1923), and 16,991 GRT SS Tuscania (1921)
Anchor Line struggled in the Great Depression of the 1930s. In 1935 Cunard withdrew from the company and Anchor went into liquidation. [5]
Shipping magnate Lord Runciman saved the company, letting it retain its identity.
In the Second World War the Admiralty requisitioned Cameronia and Transylvania as armed merchant cruisers. On 10 August 1940 German submarine U-56 (1938) torpedoed and sank Transylvania in the North Atlantic off Malin Head, killing 36 members of her complement.
After the war Anchor Line struggled once again to change with the times. Its core markets gradually disappeared with the expansion of air transport. The company restructured several times to try and stay abreast of events but the last Anchor line ships were finally withdrawn from service in 1980 and the company was no more. [6] At its height however, Anchor Line was well renowned and vitally important to Glasgow. In a company history written in 1932 it was observed that:
"They give employment to hundreds of dockers, loading and discharging. Each ship carries between four and five hundred crew, nearly all belonging to or resident around Clydeside. The money circulated for stores and other trade accounts runs into hundreds of thousands of pounds in the year. The welfare of some thousands of people depends on the ships." [7]
Patrick Dollan, Provost of Glasgow summed the feeling up in an article:
"Every Scot thrills with pride and memories of the adventure and enjoyment of travel on hearing of the Anchor Line. When I was a boy it was the ambition of every youngster to sail across the Atlantic on an Anchor Liner..." [8]
The SS Cameronia was a twin propeller triple-expansion 15,600 IHP passenger steamship owned by the Glasgow-based Anchor Line and built by D. and W. Henderson and Company at Glasgow in 1911. The ship provided a transatlantic service from Glasgow to various destinations.
P Henderson & Company, also known as Paddy Henderson, was a ship owning and management company based in Glasgow, Scotland and operating to Burma. Patrick Henderson started business in Glasgow as a merchant at the age of 25 in 1834. He had three brothers. Two were merchants working for an agent in the Italian port of Leghorn; the third, George, was a sea captain with his own ship.
SS Tuscania was a luxury liner of the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of the Cunard Line and named after Tuscania, Italy. In 1918 the ship was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-boat UB-77 while transporting American troops to Europe with the loss of 210 lives.
RMS Saxonia was a British passenger liner built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, Scotland for the Cunard Steamship Company for their Liverpool-Montreal service. She was the first of four almost identical sister ships built by Browns between 1954 and 1957 for UK-Montreal service. The first two of these ships, Saxonia and Ivernia were extensively rebuilt in 1962/3 as dual purpose liner/cruise ships. They were renamed Carmania and Franconia respectively and painted in the same green cruising livery as the Caronia. Carmania continued transatlantic crossings and cruises until September 1967 when she closed out Cunard's Montreal service. She and her sister had been painted white at the end of 1966 and from 1968 Carmania sailed as a full time cruise ship until withdrawal after arriving at Southampton on 31 October 1971. In August 1973 she was bought by the Soviet Union-based Black Sea Shipping Company and renamed SS Leonid Sobinov. The ship was scrapped in 1999.
SS Tempest was the first ship of the Anchor Line belonging to Scottish brothers Nicol and Robert Handyside and Captain Thomas Henderson. The 214-foot (65 m), 866-ton ship was built as a sail-ship by Sandeman & McLaurin of Glasgow and launched on 21 December 1854. On 3 April 1855 Henderson began a maiden voyage from Glasgow to Bombay.
SS California was a twin-screw steamer that D. and W. Henderson and Company of Glasgow built for the Anchor Line in 1907 as a replacement for the aging ocean liner Astoria, which had been in continuous service since 1884. She worked the Glasgow to New York transatlantic route and was sunk by the German submarine SM U-85 on 7 February 1917.
SS Transylvania was a British passenger liner of the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of the Cunard Line and a sister ship to SS Tuscania. She was torpedoed and sunk on 4 May 1917 by the German U-boat SM U-63 at 44°15′N8°30′E while carrying Allied troops to Egypt and sank with a loss of 412 lives.
SS California was a British 16,792 GRT steam turbine ocean liner built in Glasgow in 1923 for the Anchor Line. She was a sister ship of Cameronia, Tyrrhenia, Tuscania, Transylvania and Caledonia. In 1939 the Royal Navy requisitioned her. She was bombed and abandoned along with the Duchess of York west of Spain by a Luftwaffe attack in July 1943.
SSCzar was an ocean liner for the then Russian American Line before World War I. In 1920-1930, the ship was named Estonia for the Baltic American Line, then named Pułaski for the PTTO and as a UK Ministry of War Transport troopship, and as Empire Penryn after World War II. The liner was built in Glasgow for the Russian American Line in 1912 and sailed on North Atlantic routes from Liepāja (Libau) to New York. On one eastbound voyage in October 1913, Czar was one of ten ships that came to the aid of the burning Uranium Line steamer Volturno.
Ravenscrag is the name of several ships, some being sailing vessels and some steamships. One of the sailing vessels is historically significant for bringing to the Hawaiian Islands in 1879 Portuguese immigrants who subsequently introduced the ukulele to island culture.
SS Letitia was an ocean liner built in Scotland for service with the Anchor-Donaldson Line. She continued to serve with its successor company Donaldson Atlantic Line. At the start of the Second World War in September 1939, the British Admiralty requisitioned the ship for service and had it converted to serve as an armed merchant cruiser. She was withdrawn from this service in 1941 to become a troop ship.
Lavia was a cruise ship that caught fire and sank in Hong Kong Harbour in 1989. She was built for Cunard White Star Line in 1947 as the cargo liner Media. In 1961 she was sold to Italy, rebuilt as an ocean liner and renamed Flavia. In 1969, she was refitted as a cruise ship and renamed Flavian. In 1982 she was sold to Panama and renamed Lavia. She was undergoing a refit when the fire occurred. The damage to her was so great that she was scrapped.
Over the years, a number of ships have foundered off Southport. For the purposes of this article, the Southport area shall be considered as Southwards from Lytham St Annes to Freshfield.
Cameronia was a British ocean liner which was built in 1920 by William Beardmore & Co Ltd, Dalmuir for the Anchor Line. She was requisitioned for use as a troopship in the Second World War, surviving a torpedo attack. In 1953 she was requisitioned by the Ministry of Troop Transport (MoTT) and renamed Empire Clyde. She was scrapped in 1957.
SS Britannia was a UK steam ocean liner that was built in Scotland in 1925–26 and operated by Anchor Line. In 1941 a German merchant raider sank Britannia with the loss of 249 lives.
SS Yoma was a British passenger liner that served as a troop ship in the Second World War. She was built in Scotland in 1928, and from then until 1940 Yoma ran a regular route between Glasgow in Scotland and Rangoon in Burma via Liverpool, Palma, Marseille and Egypt. She became a troop ship in 1941 and was sunk with great loss of life in the Mediterranean in 1943.
SS Parthia (1870–1956) was an iron-hulled transatlantic ocean liner built for the Cunard Line by William Denny and Brothers in Dumbarton, Scotland. Her sister ships were the Abyssinia and Algeria. Unlike her two sisters, Parthia was smaller, built in a different shipyard and had a slightly different funnel arrangement. The Parthia was retired by Cunard in 1883 and sold to John Elder & Co., who subsequently transferred her to the Guion Line. After serving with the Guion Line and operating on trans-Pacific routes with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, she was refitted and renamed Victoria.
Furness Bermuda Line was a UK shipping line that operated in the 20th century. It was part of Furness, Withy and ran passenger liners between New York and the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda from 1919 to 1966.
SS Tuscania was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, and launched on 4 October 1921 for the Anchor Line.
SS Unicorn was a British transatlantic paddle steamer built in 1836. After being bought in 1840, she was the first ship to sail with Cunard, traveling between the United Kingdom and Canada. She left the company in 1846, and would continue to operate under various owners until 1859, when she disappeared.
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