The Collins Line was the common name for the Americanshipping company started by Israel Collins and then built up by his son Edward Knight Collins, formally called the New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company. Under Edward Collins' guidance, the company grew to be a serious competitor on the transatlantic routes to the BritishCunard shipping company.
The Collins Line, as it was commonly known at the time, were the ships and lines run by the shipping company, I. G. Collins (later I. G. Collins and Son). Israel Collins had left the sea in 1818 to establish the shipping company in New York City. The firm traded in a fairly small way. In 1824, Israel was joined by his son Edward. In January 1825, Edward took advantage of a cotton shortage in England to charter a schooner in order to get to Charleston, South Carolina, ahead of his competitors and corner the market in cotton. This was the turning point in the company. In 1827, the company started a line of packets sailing between New York and Veracruz on the Mexican coast. The line prospered. Israel Collins died in 1831, and Edward took over management of a New York-New Orleans packet line. He made a great success of this venture as well.[1]
Transatlantic freight trade
Up until 1835 the company had not seriously competed in the transatlantic trade, but in that year it received a new ship, the Shakspeare. The ship was dispatched to Liverpool and returned with the largest cargo yet brought to New York. From then on, the company was a serious competitor for the transatlantic trade. At that time, all of the competing shipping firms were American. Collins' ships predominantly carried cotton for the English cotton industry. The firm continued to commission the largest ships that it could, and three vessels, Garrick, Sheridan, and Siddons, were added to the fleet. In 1838 the 1,030-ton Roscius was added, larger than any competitor. At that time, Collins' main rival was the Black Ball Line, also of New York.[1]
Transatlantic mail and passenger service
The "Great Western".
House flags
First
Second
First house flag of the Collins Line began to be used even before passenger service began. This was listed in the early 1850s, possibly because the Jack of the United States was becoming more and more similar.
Dissatisfied with the dominance of British companies in the transatlantic mail packet trade, the US Congress decided to begin a state-subsidized service of their own in 1845. The United States Postmaster General Office invited tenders from US-based shipping companies for a service from New York City to ports in Northern Europe. Four companies, including a group led by Collins, submitted their proposals. A five-year tender of carrying mail from New York to Bremen was eventually awarded to the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, led by Edward Mills, which began service in 1846.[3]
In 1849, the US Postmaster General Office invited companies to submit bids for a ten-year federal government-subsidized mail service contract between New York and Liverpool, in direct competition with Cunard, which had opened a similar service in 1848.[3][4] Collins submitted his ambitious plan to operate a weekly service on the route with five ships superior to those of Cunard in every way.[citation needed] Collins' proposal convinced the authorities and the tender was awarded to his New York and Liverpool United States Steamship Company, commonly known as the Collins Line. Due to the financial constraints of building five ships, the service was eventually scaled down to a bi-weekly operation using four ships. Collins hired the young George Steers, who later designed the famous yacht America, to design his new ships. Named Atlantic, Arctic, Baltic and Pacific, the new ships were superior to those of Cunard Line in many ways:[3] at nearly 3,000 tons, they were twice as large as Cunard's largest ships;[2] at their maximum speed of 12 knots, faster; and they included many new innovations such as steam-heating, running water and a ventilation system in all accommodations.[3][4] Other features included bathing cabins, a hairdressing salon and separate lounges for men and women.[4]
The Atlantic was the first ship in service, beginning her maiden voyage on 27 April 1850. With the crossing from New York to Liverpool taking 10 days and 16 hours, the ship clipped 12 hours off the existing Cunard record.[4]Atlantic and her sister ships consistently bettered the crossing times of the Cunard ships, and the Baltic became the first mail ship to cross in less than ten days.[2] However, due to their high speeds, the Collins steamers were also extremely uneconomic, with fuel consumption at 87 tons of coal per day (compared to 37 tons for Cunard ships).[4] Additionally, the ships required constant expensive repairs due to structural damage to their wooden hulls caused by their excessively powerful engines.[3][5]
Within two years of its initial oceanic voyage, the Collins Line was in financial trouble. The annual federal subsidy of $385,000, which its organizers and major investors first believed was sufficient to assure profitability, appeared seriously inadequate. Collins and his backers, in viewing the profitable and expanding operations of their transatlantic competitor, Cunard Lines, believed there was both need and justification for a substantial increase in the subsidy, especially in light of additional support Cunard was receiving. Cunard's annual subsidy had been considerably more than doubled—from £55,000 ($275,000) to £145,000 ($725,000) between 1839 and 1846—and by 1852 it had been increased to £173,340 ($866,700). To make matters worse, by 1852 Cunard was offering at least twice as many sailings to North America as Collins. This was especially the case during the unprofitable winter season when the Collins Line ran only one steamer per month across the Atlantic, while Cunard—now operating from New York as well as Boston—maintained a weekly schedule by providing alternate bi-weekly services between both New York and Boston and its British terminus at Liverpool.
As a consequence, in early January 1852, the Collins Line, with the support of both the Postmaster-General Nathan K. Hall and the Secretary of the Navy William Alexander Graham, petitioned Congress for a major increase in subsidy. Notwithstanding the popularity of its huge, fast and luxurious vessels, Collins had been losing money steadily. Shareholders had not received a cent in dividends and the stock was selling far below its initial offering price. And now the US government was asking the line to increase the frequency of its winter sailings simply to match the current Cunard schedule between New York and Liverpool. In those circumstances, Edward Collins maintained, the subsidy would have to be more than doubled just to break even. He therefore sought an increase to $858,000 per year.
Discussion of the subsidy persisted until a compromise was hammered out, under which Congress after December 1854 would be free to terminate the increase upon giving Collins six months' notice.
Disasters
Arctic sinking by the stern after colliding with Vesta.
On 20 September 1854, the Arctic left Liverpool with 233 passengers, including Collins' wife, their only daughter 19-year-old Mary Ann and youngest son 15-year-old Henry Coit. The ship had a good crossing until she encountered thick fog less than sixty miles from the North American coast. In the fog off Cape Race, Newfoundland, she collided with the 250-ton French iron propeller ship SS Vesta, and was holed in three places. The Arctic had no watertight compartments and began to fill with water. The captain tried to reach land before the ship sank, but only fifteen miles from shore, the ship rolled over and sank. 322 passengers are said to have perished. The next day Collins went to meet his family, but received a letter from the captain telling him that his wife and two children were dead.[2]
Grief-stricken though Collins was, he did not give up his determination to dominate the transatlantic trade. He began to plan a new ship that would be bigger, faster and more luxurious than the rest, the Adriatic.
In 1856, before the new ship had been completed, the Pacific disappeared without trace while on a voyage from Liverpool. Forty-five passengers and 141 crew members were lost, including her captain, Asa Eldridge, who had previously worked for Collins as commander of the packet ship Roscius of the Dramatic Line. The consensus at the time was that the missing steamer had probably collided with an iceberg and sunk: Eldridge would have been desperate to stay ahead of the Persia, the Cunard Line’s first iron-hulled steamer, which was due to leave Liverpool a few days after the Pacific on her maiden voyage, and was herself damaged by ice floes on that voyage.[6] This explanation of the Pacific’s disappearance was challenged in 1993 when a wreck found off the coast of Wales was identified as the ship's remains.[7] The accuracy of that conclusion has been questioned, however, and alternative evidence presented in support of the contemporary verdict about her loss.[6]
End of the company
SS Adriatic stuck in the ice in North Sydney harbor in March 1862. This is one of the only existing photographs of any Collins liner.
The Collins Line – Yet unconquered, it has only itself to beat.
—A toast on April 17, 1856 from Mayor Fernando Wood, at a New York City banquet honoring the shipwrights of the SS Adriatic.[8]
The Adriatic was launched on April 7, 1856. She was 355 feet (108m) long and was 3,670 tons, with a maximum speed of 13 knots (24km/h; 15mph). She was intended to begin service in November, but due to technical problems, she did not run her sea trials until 1857. In August 1857, shortly before the onset of a brief but severe depression, Congress finally gave the required six-month notice of a subsidy reduction to the pre-1852 amount of $385,000 yearly and for only twenty trips.[9] By the next February, the Collins Line had suspended operations, and on 1 April 1858, in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings, its remaining vessels were sold at auction. The Adriatic only made one voyage for Collins' company under these circumstances.[10] The Atlantic made a sailing in December 1857 and Baltic made one in January 1858, but in February the planned sailing of the Atlantic was cancelled and the company was wound up. The Adriatic, in the service of her new owners, made a crossing from Galway to Newfoundland in only 5 days 19¾ hours.
The Collins Line's remaining ships were auctioned off to pay creditors:[1][11]
The Adriatic was sold for British mail service. The S. S. Adriatic featured on the 12 cent postage stamp in the US Postal Service's 1869 Pictorial Issue.[12] After conversion to a sailing ship in 1871, it became a coal hulk for the African Steamship line and was beached in August 1885 in Bonny, Rivers State, Africa, after it was leaking so badly it could no longer be used as a storeship.[13]
The Atlantic was sold; it was broken up for scrap in September 1871.[14]
The Baltic was sold and later converted to a sailing ship; it was broken up in 1880.[14]
The collapse of the Collins line left Cunard with very little opposition in the Atlantic, as the Great Western Steamship Company had already ceased trading.[2]
The Cunard Line is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships came into practical usage during the early 19th century; however, there were exceptions that came before. Steamships usually use the prefix designations of "PS" for paddle steamer or "SS" for screw steamer. As paddle steamers became less common, "SS" is incorrectly assumed by many to stand for "steamship". Ships powered by internal combustion engines use a prefix such as "MV" for motor vessel, so it is not correct to use "SS" for most modern vessels.
The Blue Riband is an unofficial accolade given to the passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service with the record highest average speed. The term was borrowed from horse racing and was not widely used until after 1910. The record is based on average speed rather than passage time because ships follow different routes. Also, eastbound and westbound speed records are reckoned separately, as the more difficult westbound record voyage, against the Gulf Stream and the prevailing weather systems, typically results in lower average speeds.
The White Star Line was a British shipping line. Founded out of the remains of a defunct packet company, it gradually rose up to become one of the most prominent shipping companies in the world, providing passenger and cargo services between the British Empire and the United States. While many other shipping lines focused primarily on speed, White Star branded their services by focusing more on providing comfortable passages for both upper class travellers and immigrants.
SS City of Glasgow of 1850 was a single-screw iron hulled passenger steamship of the Inman Line. Based on ideas pioneered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain of 1845, City of Glasgow established that Atlantic steamships could be operated profitably without government subsidy. After a refit in 1852, she was also the first Atlantic steamship to carry steerage passengers, representing a significant improvement in the conditions experienced by immigrants. In March 1854 City of Glasgow vanished while enroute from Liverpool to Philadelphia with 480 passengers and crew aboard.
The Inman Line was one of the three largest 19th-century British passenger shipping companies on the North Atlantic, along with the White Star Line and Cunard Line. Founded in 1850, it was absorbed in 1893 into American Line. The firm's formal name for much of its history was the Liverpool, Philadelphia and New York Steamship Company, but it was also variously known as the Liverpool and Philadelphia Steamship Company, as Inman Steamship Company, Limited, and, in the last few years before absorption, as the Inman and International Steamship Company.
Edward Knight Collins I was an American shipping magnate.
The Black Ball Line was a passenger line founded by a group of New York Quaker merchants headed by Jeremiah Thompson, and included Isaac Wright & Son (William), Francis Thompson and Benjamin Marshall. All were Quakers except Marshall.
SS Pacific was a wooden-hulled, sidewheel steamer built in 1849 for transatlantic service with the American Collins Line. Designed to outclass their chief rivals from the British-owned Cunard Line, Pacific and her three sister ships were the largest, fastest and most well-appointed transatlantic steamers of their day.
SS Arctic was a 2,856-ton paddle steamer, one of the Collins Line, which operated a transatlantic passenger and mail steamship service during the 1850s. She was the largest of a fleet of four, built with the aid of U.S. government subsidies to challenge the transatlantic supremacy of the British-backed Cunard Line. During her four-year period of service, the ship was renowned both for her speed and for the luxury of her accommodation.
SS Sirius was a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamship built in 1837 by Robert Menzies & Sons of Leith, Scotland for the London-Cork route operated by the Saint George Steam Packet Company. The next year, she opened transatlantic steam passenger service when she was chartered for two voyages by the British and American Steam Navigation Company. By arriving in New York a day ahead of the Great Western, she is usually listed as the first holder of the Blue Riband, although the term was not used until decades later.
The Great Western Steam Ship Company operated the first regular transatlantic steamer service from 1838 until 1846. Related to the Great Western Railway, it was expected to achieve the position that was ultimately secured by the Cunard Line. The firm's first ship, Great Western was capable of record Blue Riband crossings as late as 1843 and was the model for Cunard's Britannia and her three sisters. The company's second steamer, the Great Britain was an outstanding technical achievement of the age. The company collapsed because it failed to secure a mail contract and Great Britain appeared to be a total loss after running aground. The company might have had a more successful outcome had it built sister ships for Great Western instead of investing in the too advanced Great Britain.
The British and American Steam Navigation Company was a steamship line that operated a regular transatlantic service from 1839 to 1841. Before its first purpose-built Atlantic liner, British Queen was completed, British and American chartered Sirius for two voyages in 1838 to beat the Great Western Steamship Company into service. B & A's regular liners were larger than their rivals, but were underpowered. The company collapsed when its second vessel, President was lost in 1841.
The Liverpool and Great Western Steamship Company, known commonly as the Guion Line, was a British passenger service that operated the Liverpool-Queenstown-New York route from 1866 to 1894. While incorporated in Great Britain, 52% of the company's capital was from the American firm, Williams and Guion of New York. Known primarily for transporting immigrants, in 1879 the line started commissioning Blue Riband record breakers to compete against Cunard, White Star and Inman for first class passengers. The financial troubles of one of the company's major partners in 1884 forced the firm to return its latest record breaker, the Oregon, to her builders and focus again on the immigrant trade. The company suspended sailings in 1894 because of new American restrictions on immigrant traffic.
SS Baltic was a wooden-hulled sidewheel steamer built in 1850 for transatlantic service with the American Collins Line. Designed to outclass their chief rivals from the British-owned Cunard Line, Baltic and her three sister ships—Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic—were the largest, fastest and most luxurious transatlantic steamships of their day.
The Britannia class was the Cunard Line's initial fleet of wooden paddlers that established the first year round scheduled Atlantic steamship service in 1840. By 1845, steamships carried half of the transatlantic saloon passengers and Cunard dominated this trade. While the units of the Britannia class were solid performers, they were not superior to many of the other steamers being placed on the Atlantic at that time. What made the Britannia class successful is that it was the first homogeneous class of transatlantic steamships to provide a frequent and uniform service. Britannia, Acadia and Caledonia entered service in 1840 and Columbia in 1841 enabling Cunard to provide the dependable schedule of sailings required under his mail contracts with the Admiralty. It was these mail contracts that enabled Cunard to survive when all of his early competitors failed.
The America class was the replacement for the Britannia class, the Cunard Line's initial fleet of wooden paddle steamers. Entering service starting in 1848, these six vessels permitted Cunard to double its schedule to weekly departures from Liverpool, with alternating sailings to New York. The new ships were also designed to meet new competition from the United States.
The Oceanic class were a group of six ocean liners built by Harland and Wolff at Belfast, for the White Star Line, for the transatlantic service. They were the company's first generation of steamships to serve the North Atlantic passenger trade, entering service between 1871 and 1872.
Atlantic was a wooden-hulled, side-wheel steamship launched in 1849. She was conceived as a part of an American fleet which would break the monopoly that European steamers, notably the Cunard Line, had on trans-Atlantic trade. She was the most successful of the Collins Line ships, and one of the most luxurious vessels of her day, but the company went bankrupt in 1858.
Adriatic was a wooden-hulled, side-wheel steamship launched in New York in 1856. She was conceived as the largest, fastest, most luxurious trans-Atlantic passenger liner of her day, the pride of the Collins Line. At the time of her launch she was the largest ship in the world.
↑ Sloan, Edward W. (1993) “The Wreck of the Collins Liner Pacific – A Challenge for Maritime Historians and Nautical Archaeologists.” Bermuda Journal of Archaeology and Maritime History, Volume 5, 84–91.
Fowler, William M. Jr. (2017). Steam Titans: Cunard, Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce on the North Atlantic. New York: Bloomsbury USA. ISBN9781620409084.
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