Dominion Line

Last updated

Dominion Line
IndustryShipping
Founded Liverpool, England (1870)
Defunct1926 (UK and US), still operating in the West Indies.
FateWound up in the UK and US, Still Operating in the West Indies
SuccessorDominion Navigation Company Limited (in the West Indies)
Headquarters Liverpool, England
House Flag Dominion Line Flag.svg
House Flag

The Dominion Line was a trans-atlantic passenger line founded in 1870 as the Liverpool & Mississippi Steamship Co., with the official name being changed in 1872 to the Mississippi & Dominion Steamship Co Ltd. [1] The firm was amalgamated in 1902 into the International Mercantile Marine Co.

Contents

20th Century

After 1908, the passenger service was operated under the name "White Star-Dominion Line" and in 1926 the Dominion Line company was wound up completely, except in the West Indies, with the service itself being renamed "White Star Line Canadian Service". [1] The company concentrated on the UK-Canada passenger trade. [2]

The line sailed from Port of Liverpool and several ports on the American and Canadian east coasts, namely Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax, Portland and Boston. [3]

From 1926 to 1992, the company was operated as a regional subsidiary of the United States Lines. In 1992, Dominion Navigation Company Limited (as it had been renamed in 1991) demerged from the United States Lines which was ceasing all service operations.

In 1993, the distinctive blue and white burgee with the golden crowned dolphin was designed and has remained in use ever since, replacing the United States Lines burgee.

Dominion Navigation Company has since been in private ownership, headquartered in Montserrat, British West Indies, incorporated as a private company limited by shares. Dominion Navigation Company, sometimes operating as Dominion Cruises™, specialized on private luxury cruises in the West Indies and yacht charter in the Caribbean islands. In addition to its presence in the West Indies, the company expanded its operations in Europe with bespoke luxury cruises on the French Riviera, Monaco and the Italian Riviera in 2017. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cunard Line</span> British shipping and cruise line

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 three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermuda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">P&O</span> British shipping and logistics company

P&O was a British shipping and logistics company dating from the early 19th century. Formerly a public company, it was sold to DP World in March 2006 for £3.9 billion. DP World currently operate several P&O branded businesses, P&O Ferries, Istithmar P&O Estates, and P&O Maritime Logistics. It also operates P&O Heritage, which is the official historic archive and collection of P&O.

The African Steamship Company was a British shipping line in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CP Ships</span> Canadian shipping company

CP Ships was a large Canadian shipping company established in the 19th century. From the late 1880s until after World War II, the company was Canada's largest operator of Atlantic and Pacific steamships. Many immigrants travelled on CP ships from Europe to Canada. In 1914 the sinking of the Canadian Pacific steamship RMS Empress of Ireland just before World War I became largest maritime disaster in Canadian history. The company provided Canadian Merchant Navy vessels in World Wars I and II. Twelve vessels were lost due to enemy action in World War II, including the RMS Empress of Britain, which was the largest ship ever sunk by a German U-boat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Star Line</span> Defunct shipping line (1871–1935)

The Red Star Line was a shipping line founded in 1871 as a joint venture between the International Navigation Company of Philadelphia, which also ran the American Line, and the Société Anonyme de Navigation Belgo-Américaine of Antwerp, Belgium. The company's main ports of call were Antwerp in Belgium, Liverpool and Southampton in the United Kingdom and New York City and Philadelphia in the United States.

MS <i>Bore</i>

MS Bore is a combination museum and hotel ship docked permanently in Turku, Finland. She was originally built in 1960 by Oskarshamn shipyard, Oskarshamn, Sweden as the car/passenger ferry SS Bore for Steamship Company Bore, Finland, then the last commercial steam ship built in Scandinavia and the first ferry on the route between Finland and Sweden where cars could drive aboard. She was later known as SS Borea, before being rebuilt as a cruise ship in 1988. 1988 to 2010 she was owned by the Finnish shipping company Kristina Cruises and known as MS Kristina Regina until she was retired because she did not comply with new safety regulations.

The International Navigation Company (INC) was a Philadelphia-based holding company owning 26 ships totaling 181,000 tons and carried more passengers than either Cunard or White Star, when the company was reorganized as International Mercantile Marine in 1902. INC was formed in 1871 with the backing of the Pennsylvania Railroad to operate foreign flagged vessels on transatlantic routes to Philadelphia. Clement Griscom, the company's general manager, entered into an agreement with the Belgian Government to establish the Red Star Line to operate a mail service out of Antwerp to Philadelphia and New York. This subsidiary would provide most of the company's profits for the next 30 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Line</span> American transport company

The American Line was a shipping company founded in 1871 and based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It began as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, although the railroad got out of the shipping business soon after founding the company. In 1902, it became part of the International Navigation Co., with the American Line generally handling traffic between the United States ports of Philadelphia and New York City and the British ports of Liverpool and Southampton. Sister company Red Star Line handled traffic between America and the European continent, primarily through Antwerp, Belgium. The company's most prominent president was Clement Griscom, who led the company from 1888 to 1902 and worked as a company executive for its entire existence. During its existence, the company was the largest American shipping company, rivalled only by the smaller, Baltimore-based Atlantic Transport Lines, although this distinction is a marginal one, as all American oceanic shipping concerns were dwarfed by British companies such as the White Star Line or Cunard Line and German ones such as HAPAG.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inman Line</span>

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.

SS <i>Megantic</i>

'Megantic was a UK transatlantic ocean liner that was built in Ireland and launched in 1908. She was one of a pair of sister ships that were ordered in 1907 by Dominion Line but completed for White Star Line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Furness Withy</span>

Furness Withy was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Mail Steam Packet Company</span>

The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was a British shipping company founded in London in 1839 by a Scot, James MacQueen. The line's motto was Per Mare Ubique. After a troubled start, it became the largest shipping group in the world in 1927 when it took over the White Star Line. The company was liquidated and its assets taken over by the newly formed Royal Mail Lines in 1932 after financial trouble and scandal; over the years RML declined to no more than the name of a service run by former rival Hamburg Süd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elder Dempster Lines</span> Shipping company

Elder Dempster Lines was a UK shipping company that traded from 1932 to 2000, but had its origins in the mid-19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Lakes passenger steamers</span>

The history of commercial passenger shipping on the Great Lakes is long but uneven. It reached its zenith between the mid-19th century and the 1950s. As early as 1844, palace steamers carried passengers and cargo around the Great Lakes. By 1900, fleets of relatively luxurious passenger steamers plied the waters of the lower lakes, especially the major industrial centres of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Toronto.

RMS <i>Empress of Canada</i> (1960) US Cruise Ship built in 1960

RMS Empress of Canada was an ocean liner launched in 1960 and completed the following year by Vickers-Armstrongs of Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne, England for Canadian Pacific Steamships Ltd. This ship, the third CP vessel to be named Empress of Canada, regularly traversed the transatlantic route between Liverpool and Canada for the next decade. Although Canadian Pacific Railways was incorporated in Canada, the Atlantic liners were owned and operated by the British registered subsidiary Canadian Pacific Steamships Ltd. and were always British flagged and manned and therefore Empress of Canada was not the flagship of the Canadian Merchant Marine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leyland Line</span> British shipping transport company (1873–1935)

The Leyland Line was a British shipping transport line founded in 1873 by Frederick Richards Leyland after his apprenticeship in the firm of John Bibby, Sons & Co. After Frederick Leyland's death, the company was taken over by Sir John Ellerman in 1892. In 1902, the company was bought by the International Mercantile Marine Company and a portion of its fleet was withdrawn from service and transferred to the Ellerman Lines. The company was liquidated in 1935 after a period of declining influence due to the Great Depression.

SS <i>Princess Marguerite</i>

Princess Marguerite, Princess Marguerite II, and Princess Marguerite III was a series of Canadian coastal passenger vessels that operated along the west coast of British Columbia and into Puget Sound in Washington state almost continuously from 1925 to 1999. Known locally as "the Maggie", they saw the longest service of any vessel that carried passengers and freight between Victoria, Vancouver, and Seattle. The vessels were owned and operated by a series of companies, primarily Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CPSS) and British Columbia Steamships Corporation. The first two were part of the CPR "Princess fleet," which was composed of ships having names which began with the title "Princess". These were named after Marguerite Kathleen Shaughnessy, who was not a princess but was the daughter of Baron Thomas Shaughnessy, then chairman of the board of CPSS's parent, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Steamship Lines</span> Shipping company

Eastern Steamship Lines was a shipping company in the United States that operated from 1901 to 1955. It was created through successive mergers by Wall Street financier and speculator Charles W. Morse. The line sailed along the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, operating out of Boston and New York. Much of its fleet was sold Boston to the US government for use in World War I. After the war the company would order additional ships for the Post-war period. Eastern Steamship Lines served as operator for the War Shipping Administration in World War II. The United States government requisitioned all of the fleets vessels for military duty on both the Atlantic and Pacific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Furness Bermuda Line</span>

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.

References

  1. 1 2 "The Dominion Line - Passenger lists and Emigrant ships from Norway-Heritage". www.norwayheritage.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  2. "Floor plan - Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool museums". www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  3. "Dominion Line Royal Mail Steamers Advertisement - 1890s | GG Archives". www.GGArcvhives.com. Retrieved 1 July 2019.
  4. "Heritage & History – Dominion Navigation Company – Private Yacht Charter and Luxury Cruises – Official Website". dominioncruises.com. Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved 24 April 2018.