Christian Salvesen was a Scottish whaling, transport and logistics company with a long and varied history, employing 13,000 staff and operating in seven countries in western Europe. In December 2007, it was acquired by French listed transport group Norbert Dentressangle.[1]
Salve Christian Frederik Salvesen (1827–1911) was born in Mandal, Vest-Agder, Norway. Christian Salvesen was the son of Norwegian merchant shipowner, Thomas Salvesen (1787–1853). In 1846, his older brother Johan Theodor Salvesen (1820–1865) had gone into the partnership of Turnbull, Salvesen and Company with George W. Turnbull and established an affiliate office in Leith near Edinburgh, Scotland.
The oldest brother, Carl Emil Salvesen (1816–1877) also moved to Leith but his role in the company is unclear. Christian Salvesen joined the partnership after migrating from Mandal in 1851. He lived and operated from 20 Charlotte Street in Leith (now known as Queen Charlotte Street).[2]
In 1868, Christian Salvesen, together with Wilhelm August Thams (1812–1884) founded the mining company Ørkedals Mining Company and bought a number of small mines around Løkken, Norway. In 1872, Christian Salvesen left the partnership and set up Christian Salvesen & Co., based in Leith.
Initially, the company operated as shipping and forwarding agents, shipbrokers and timber merchants. Christian Salvesen & Co. began buying steamers in the 1880s, and in 1886 started a line to Stavanger, with runs along the Norwegian coast.[3][4]
Salvesen harpoon on The Shore, Leith
In 1883, Christian Salvesen, delegated management of shipping operations to his eldest sons, Thomas and Frederick, who became partners in the firm. In the early 1900s, the company developed significant interests in whaling, initially in the Arctic, and then in the Antarctic.
They established and operated from a base at Leith Harbour (named for Salvesen's base in Scotland) on the island of South Georgia, to the south east of the Falkland Islands. During 1908, in partnership with Christian Thams, Christian Salvesen also invested in the construction of the first electric railway from Løkken to Thamshavn in Norway in support of their mining interests.[5]
In the years 1950 to 1962, the whaling ships Southern Harvester and Southern Venturer belonged to the company. These ships were floating factories, and the core of a whaling expedition. Each expedition consisted of a floating factory as well as a team of whale catchers which were equipped with an onboard hangar which housed a Westland Whirlwind (helicopter) which was used for whale spotting.
One of the company's whale catchers, Southern Actor, now lies at the whaling museum in Sandefjord, Norway, and is preserved as a floating museum ship. They ceased whaling in 1963 and ceased shipping in 1990, thereafter concentrating on road haulage.[6]
Salvesen grave in Rosebank Cemetery
As the boom in whaling ended after World War II, Salvesen moved into the commercial trawler business and also bought a cold store in Grimsby. It traded primarily in housebuilding, general food freezing and oil before moving back into the transport business by buying Swift Services.[7]
Christian Salvesen's house stood at Goldenacre in Edinburgh, on Ferry Road opposite Inverleith Row, and closing the vista along that road. A huge villa from around 1865 set in extensive gardens, it was demolished in the 1960s and replaced by Edinburgh's tax office, that in turn was demolished in the early 21st century, and is now a housing site.
His offices were on the south side of Bernard Street, Leith, in a building that doubled as the Norwegian Consulate for Edinburgh (now a Chinese restaurant).[citation needed] He is buried in Rosebank Cemetery on Pilrig Street in Leith.
Christian Salvesen's whaling ships brought the first penguins back to Edinburgh and donated them to Edinburgh Zoo. Edinburgh therefore became the first zoo in the world to house and breed penguins.
The Salvesen family lost many sons and nephews during World War I. Partly as a result of this they built several memorial housing developments, most on Scottish Veterans' Garden City principles:
Memorial to 2nd Lt Eric Thomas Somervell Salveson on house in Earl Haig Gardens, Trinity EdinburghEarl Haig Gardens (1925) off East Trinity Road in Edinburgh, Scotland. For injured and retired army personnel. with memorial tablets over the doors to Salvesen family members and others killed in the conflict such as 2nd Lt Edward Maxwell Salvesen and 2nd Lt Eric Thomas Somervell Salveson.
Salvesen Gardens (1948) in Muirhouse, Edinburgh, for army personnel.
Salvesen Crescent also in Muirhouse, for retired lighthouse keepers (who played a big part in the survival of their fleet).
Post whaling
Salvesens left the whaling industry in 1963, thus ending whaling in Scotland, and reinvented itself as a major European transport and logistics company. In 1985, the company went public as a diversified industrial group, with interests in shipping, brick manufacture, housebuilding, cold storage and distribution, rock and roll lighting hire (Light and Sound Design Ltd, now part of PRG inc.), theatre and television lighting manufacture (Lumo Lighting, was part of Lee Colortran International ) and generator hire.
As a public company, the business focussed on European logistics, buying Swift Transport Services in October 1993. The non logistics businesses were sold during this period.
Salvesen have had mixed fortunes since the beginning of the 1990s. A potential takeover by Hays plc in August 1996, which could have valued the shares in the 350–400 pence range, did not result in a formal offer.[8] This did however lead to the spin off of the generator hire business, Aggreko in March 1997, and the arrival of a new Chief Executive, Edward Roderick, who led the business until his sacking in May 2004.[9][10]
During this period, a Swedish investor AB Custos discussed buying the company, and yet again no formal offer was issued to shareholders. This was in July 2000.[11]
In October 2004, a merger was proposed with TDG plc, but this apparently failed because of the pre merger positioning of key executives from both companies.[12] On 2 October 2007, the board recommended a cash offer by Norbert Dentressangle for £254.4 million to buy Christian Salvesen. The takeover was completed on 14 December that year.[13]
Sandefjordmuseene (Hvalfangstmuseet) is a museum located in Sandefjord, Norway. It is dedicated to the whaling industry and is the only specialized museum on the subject of whales and whaling in Europe. Since 2009, the museum has been associated with the Vestfold Museum (Vestfoldmuseene). It is one of the largest whaling museums in the world, and Europe's only museum dedicated to the whaling industry.
Southern Actor is a former whale catcher, currently a museum ship based in Sandefjord, Norway and owned by Sandefjord Museum. It is the only whale catcher from the Modern Whaling Epoch still to be in its original working order. Over 100,000 hours have been spent on restoring the vessel.
Leith Harbour, also known as Port Leith, was a whaling station on the northeast coast of South Georgia, established and operated by Christian Salvesen Ltd, Edinburgh. The station was in operation from 1909 until 1965. It was the largest of seven whaling stations, situated near the mouth of Stromness Bay.
The Hon. Edward Theodore Salvesen, Lord Salvesen was a Scottish lawyer, politician and judge who rose to be a Senator of the College of Justice.
The Thamshavn Line was Norway's first electric railway, running from 1908 to 1974 in what is now Trøndelag county. Today it is operated as a heritage railway and is the world's oldest railway running on its original alternating current electrification scheme, using 6.6 kV 25 Hz AC. It was built to transport pyrites from the mines at Løkken Verk to the port at Thamshavn, as well as passengers. There were six stations: Thamshavn, Orkanger, Bårdshaug, Fannrem, Solbusøy and Svorkmo. The tracks were extended to Løkken Verk in 1910.
Christian Thams was a Norwegian architect, industrialist, businessman and diplomat. Thams was also a founder and major shareholder of Société du Madal, a Norwegian company which operated coconut oil plantations and extracted colonial taxes from the indigenous population in Zambezia, Mozambique.
Elkem Thamshavn is a smelting plant owned by Elkem located at Thamshavn just north of Orkanger in Orkland Municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. The plant produces silicon and microsilica and was started in 1931.
Chr. Salvesen & Chr. Thams's Communications Aktieselskab, Salvesen & Thams, Comms. AS or S&T is a Norwegian company based at Løkken Verk in Meldal that was responsible for electricity production and railway operation for Løkken Mine operated by the Orkla Mining Company. After the mine closed in 1987 it has been turned into a development company to try to create new jobs at Løkken.
Norbert Dentressangle was a major European transport, logistics and freight forwarder. It was founded in 1979, initially concentrating on cross channel transport between France and the United Kingdom.
SS Polar Chief was a merchant steamship that was built in England in 1897 and scrapped in Scotland in 1952. In its 55-year career it had previously been called Montcalm, RFA Crenella, Crenella, Rey Alfonso, Anglo-Norse and Empire Chief. Early in the First World War it spent eight months pretending to be the battleship HMS Audacious.
XPO, Inc. is an American transportation company that conducts less-than-truckload shipping in North America. The company has headquarters in Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S., and 564 locations globally.
Salvesen is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Wilhelm August Thams was a Norwegian merchant, land owner and lumber mill owner.
Orkla Mining Company Ltd. was a Norwegian mining company established in 1904. The company was the largest mining company in Norway in the aftermath of World War I, and was among the world's largest pyrite producers. After closing of the mining operations in 1987, the company developed into the holding company Orkla ASA, which is among the largest companies at Oslo Stock Exchange.
The Southern Whaling and Sealing Company Ltd (SWSC) were a United Kingdom-based whaling and sealing company, originally formed in 1911 by the partnership of Richard Irvin & Sons of North Shields and the South African-based fishing company Irvin & Johnson. Latterly they were sold to Lever Bros., in 1919 and re-sold to Christian Salvesen Ltd in 1941.
Captain Harold Keith Salvesen was a British businessman of Norwegian descent, who taught economics at the University of Oxford before becoming a partner in the family whaling and shipping firm Christian Salvesen.
The first evidence for whaling in Scotland is from Bronze Age settlements where whalebones were used for constructing and decorating dwelling places. Commercial whaling started in the Middle Ages, and by the 1750s most Scottish ports were whaling, with the Edinburgh Whale-Fishing Company being founded in 1749. The last company still engaged in whaling was Christian Salvesen, which exited the industry in 1963.
Commercial whaling in Britain began late in the 16th century and continued after the 1801 formation of the United Kingdom and intermittently until the middle of the 20th century.
Colonel Theodore Emile Salvesen of Culrain (1863–1942) was a 19th-century Scottish soldier and businessman.
SS Gedania was an oil tanker built in 1919-1920 at Kiel, Germany for the Standard Oil of New Jersey's transatlantic shipments to Germany, and registered under the flag of the Free City of Danzig. In 1940, the tanker was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine and converted to a support ship for naval operations in the Atlantic. On the first mission in July 1941, to support commerce raiding by the German battleship Bismarck and cruiser Prinz Eugen, Gedania was captured and taken into service with the British Ministry of War Transport as Empire Garden. In 1947 it returned to commercial service as Southern Garden with the South Georgia Company, transporting whale oil from the southern Atlantic, and carrying supplies and personnel to the whaling stations. The tanker was broken up in 1960.
Somner, Graeme (1984) From 70 North to 70 South: A history of the Christian Salvesen fleet (Christian Salvesen Ltd) ISBN978-0-9509199-0-4
Elliot, Gerald (1998) Whaling Enterprise: Salvesen in the Antarctic (Michael Russell Publishing Ltd) ISBN978-0-85955-241-7
Salvesen, Edward Theodore (1949) Memoirs of Lord Salvesen (W. & R. Chambers)
Watson, Nigel (1996) The story of Christian Salvesen, 1846-1996 (London: James & James Ltd.)
Vamplew, Wray (1975) Salvesen of Leith (Scottish Academic Press) ISBN0-7011-2037-1
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