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| Company type | ship owner and ship operator |
|---|---|
| Industry | transport |
| Founded | 1856 |
| Defunct | 1972 |
| Successor | P&O |
| Products | passenger and cargo shipping |
| Parent | P&O (1914 onwards) |
| Website | http://www.poheritage.com/our-history/company-guides/british-india-steam-navigation-company |
British India Steam Navigation Company ("BI") was formed in 1856 as the Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation Company.
The Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation Company had been formed out of Mackinnon, Mackenzie & Co, a trading partnership of the Scots William Mackinnon and Robert Mackenzie, to carry mail between Calcutta and Rangoon. It became British India SN Co in 1862. Under the hand of Lord Inchcape, who had become chairman in 1913, the company became part of the P&O group of companies in 1914 through a complex amalgamation, but continued with its own identity and organisation for another nearly 60 years until 1972, when it was entirely absorbed into P&O. P&O was eventually sold to Emirati logistics company DP World in 2006.
As one of the largest shipowners of all time, the company owned more than 500 ships and managed 150 more for other owners. At its height in 1922, BI had more than 160 ships in the fleet, many built on Clydeside, Scotland. The main shipping routes of the line were: Britain to India, Australia, Kenya, Tanganyika. The company ran services from India to Pakistan, Ceylon, Bay of Bengal, Singapore, Malaya, Java, Thailand, Japan, Persian Gulf, East Africa and South Africa. BI had a long history of service to the British and Indian governments through trooping and other military contracts. In the last decade of its operational existence BI carried thousands of school children on educational cruises.
Mantola was sunk in February 1917 by a torpedo from a German submarine off the coast of Ireland with a substantial cargo of silver bullion.
The cargo ship Gairsoppa, carrying silver bullion, pig iron and tea, which was sunk at great depth by the German submarine U-101 in February 1941 some 300 nautical miles (560 km; 350 mi) southwest of Galway Bay, Ireland, carried the richest cargo of any sunken ship in world history. [1]
Some of the company's better known passenger ships included Rajula, Dunera, Scindia, Sirdhana, Leicestershire, Dwarka, Dumra, the sister ships Kampala and Karanja, and Kenya and Uganda, and Dara, which was sunk by a terrorist bomb in 1961.
Nevasa of 1956 was the final passenger ship built for BI. Serving as a troopship until redundant in 1962, Nevasa was assigned new duties with the BI educational cruise ship flotilla until 1974, when she became uneconomic [2] due a four fold increase in crude oil prices and was scrapped in 1975 having earlier been joined in this trade by the more economic Uganda. The highly popular Uganda was taken up (STUFT) by the British Ministry of Defence in 1982 as a hospital ship during the Falklands War with Argentina. Returning to BI's tradition of government service again in 1983 – this time as a troopship – Uganda was "the last BI" when finally withdrawn in 1985. Dwarka holds the distinction of closing British-India's true "liner" services, when withdrawn from the company's Persian Gulf local trades in 1982, in her 35th year.
Source: [3]
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SS Uganda was a British steamship that had a varied and notable career. She was built in 1952 as a passenger liner, and successively served as a cruise ship, hospital ship, troop ship and stores ship. She was laid up in 1985 and scrapped in 1992.
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Sir William Mackinnon, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish ship-owner and businessman who built up substantial commercial interests in India and East Africa. He established the British-India Steam Navigation Company and the Imperial British East Africa Company.
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The Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation Company (C&BSN) was a British steamship company formed in 1856 and absorbed into the British-India Steam Navigation Company in 1862.
SS Virawa was British India Steam Navigation Company (BI) steamship. She was launched in Scotland in 1890 and scrapped in India in 1921. Her trades included taking horses from Australia to India, and indentured labourers from India to Fiji and Trinidad. In 1899 she was a troop ship in the Second Boer War.
James Lyle Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape,, known as Sir James Mackay from 1894 to 1911, was a British businessman and colonial administrator in India who became Chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company ("P&O") and founded Inchcape Retail Ltd.
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MV Dwarka was a British India Steam Navigation Company passenger and cargo ship that operated between the Indian subcontinent and Persian Gulf. She was in service from 1947 until 1982. She was the second of four "modern D Class" sister ships built between 1946 and 1950, and the only one of the four to be built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson at Low Walker.
HMHS Rewa was a steamship originally built for the British-India Steam Navigation Company for their mail and passenger service but requisitioned in August 1914 and fitted out for use as a British hospital ship during the First World War. On 4 January 1918, she was hit and sunk by a torpedo from the German U-boat U-55.
SS Mantola was a British India Steam Navigation Company (BI) steamship that was built in 1916 and sunk by a German U-boat in 1917. She belonged to BI's "M" class of cargo liners. She was carrying an estimated 600,000 ounces of silver bullion when she was sunk. In 2017, 526 bars of silver were salvaged from the wreck and taken to the United Kingdom, in circumstances that remain undisclosed.
SS Shuntien was a 3,059 GRT coastal passenger and cargo liner of the British-owned The China Navigation Company Ltd (CNC). She was built in Hong Kong in 1934 and sunk by enemy action in the Mediterranean Sea with great loss of life in 1941. A Royal Navy corvette rescued most of Shuntien's survivors, but a few hours later the corvette too was sunk and no-one survived.
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This article is primarily about the third ship to bear this name; however, there were two previous ships : SS Nevasa and HMT/HMHS Nevasa. All three ships were operated by the British India Steam Navigation Company.
SS Kootenay was a Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) wooden-hulled sternwheeler that serviced the Arrow Lakes in British Columbia, Canada from 1897 to 1919. She was a large freight and passenger steamship and the first in a series of CPR riverboats built for the Arrow Lakes.
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