 | |
| Industry | maritime transport |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1845 |
| Founder | WJ Lamport,George Holt |
| Defunct | 30 June 1991 |
| Fate | taken over |
| Headquarters |
|
| Owner |
|
Lamport and Holt was aUK merchantshipping line. It was founded as a partnership in 1845, reconstituted as alimited company in 1911 and ceased trading in 1991.
From 1845 until 1975 Lamport and Holt was headquartered inLiverpool. The founders ofBooth Line andBlue Funnel Line had family links with the original partners in Lamport and Holt, and worked for them before founding their own steamship lines in the 1860s.
Lamport and Holt was an independent partnership until 1911, when it became a limited company and theRoyal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSP) took it over. RMSP collapsed as a result of theRoyal Mail Case in 1931 but was reconstituted as Royal Mail Lines in 1932.Vestey Group bought Lamport and Holt in 1944 and absorbed it into itsBlue Star Line subsidiary in 1991.
For much of its history Lamport and Holt traded with the east coast ofSouth America, operating liner services there to and from New York, Britain and mainland Europe. from 1902 to 1928 it operated a significant passengerocean liner service and from 1932 to 1939 it rancruise ships.
Lamport and Holt carried cargo for the UK government in theCrimean War,World War I,World War II andFalklands War. In each World War it operatedtroopships and lost numerous ships and personnel to enemy action.
From 1932Liverpool City Council authorised the company to fly the city's civic flag when in port. It is the only shipping company to have been granted this privilege.
William James Lamport (1815–1874) was born inLancaster, Lancashire, the son of aUnitarian minister. In the 1830s he started work in the office of Gibbs, Bright and Company inLiverpool, where he learnt commerce andship management. His brother Charles Lamport became the proprietor of ashipyard inWorkington,Cumberland.[1]
George Holt, junior (1824–96) was one of five sons born to George Holt, senior (1790–1861) and his wife Emma. George senior was a cotton broker in Liverpool. George junior was apprenticed to the shipping line ofThomas and John Brocklebank, where he met WJ Lamport.[1]
In 1845 the two young men formed a partnership to own and manage merchant ships. WJ Lamport was 30 years old and George Lamport junior was 21. Their original trade was cotton fromEgypt to Liverpool to supplyLancashire cotton mills, but they soon expanded their trade toIndia, New Zealand, Australia, the US and South America.[2]
The partners' first ship was the 335 tonbarqueChristabel, which James Alexander of Workington built new for them and launched on 17 September. Traditionally the ownership of merchant ships was divided into 64 shares. George Lamport senior helped to establish the business by buying a controlling interest of 34 shares in the new ship. After barely two months, on 14 November, George senior transferred his shares to the young partners, making them the controlling owners.[2]
A mid-19th-century painting of the three-masted sailing shipEmma, which Lamport and Holt owned from 1847 to 1852, shows her flying ahouse flag from her foremast of three horizontal bars. The top and bottom bars are scarlet, and the middle bar is white defaced with the initials "L&H" in black. This remained Lamport and Holt's house flag throughout its 146 years of trading. The painting is now in George Holt junior's former home in Liverpool,Sudley House, which is now a museum and art gallery.[2]
When Lamport and Holt started to operate steamships in the 1860s they adopted pale blue as the main colour for the funnel, with a black top and a white band below the white top. Early evidence for this includes a painting of a steamship, the 1,585 GRTGalileo that Lamport and Holt operated from 1864 to 1869.[3] The blue was a pale shade like that of theflag of Argentina.[4]
In 1932Liverpool City Council presented Lamport and Holt with the city's colours and granted permission for the company's ships to fly the Liverpool Civic Flag when in port. At the same time Lamport and Holt darkened the blue of its funnels to match the civic colours.[4]
In 1936 the proportions of Lamport and Holt's funnel colours were in sevenths. The lowest three sevenths of the funnel were blue, the top two sevenths black and the two sevenths between were white.[5]
Lamport and Holt expanded their fleet. Their second ship was a larger barque, the 677 tonJunior, which was built inQuebec. Her first captain was John Eils, who had 16 shares in her and became a minority investor in many of Lamport and Holt's early fleet. By 1850 the partnership had a fleet of 10 sailing ships.[2]
In 1850 Lamport and Holt started to invest insteamships by buying minority shares in ships operated by another Liverpool shipping line, James Moss & Co. Others who invested in James Moss's steamships in 1850 included WJ Lamport's cousinCharles Booth (1840–1916), who with his brother Alfred went on to foundAlfred Booth and Company in 1863.[6]
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Two of George Holt junior's brothers were apprenticed to Lamport and Holt:Alfred Holt from 1850 to 1857 and Charles Holt from 1855 to 1862. Alfred had been apprenticed to a railway engineer[1] and became head of Lamport and Holt's engineering department.[7] Another brother, Philip Holt, was a partner in Lamport and Holt.[8] In 1866 Alfred and Philip Holt founded their own shipping company, which becameBlue Funnel Line.[6]
Lamport and Holt continued to invest in sailing ships. In 1850 Charles Holt in Workington built the first of his ships for the partnership: the 407-tonCathaya. In theCrimean War (1853–56) the UK government chartered steamships to carry troops and cavalry and sailing ships to carry stores. In February 1856 a Lamport and Holt sailing ship, the 697-tonSimoda, was wrecked off theDardanelles. The partnership replaced her with the newly builtAgenoria which at 1,023 tons was the largest ship Lamport and Holt had yet owned.[7]
The first steamship in which the partnership had a controlling interest was the 189-tonZulu which they bought in 1857 fromScotts inGreenock. But they sold her in 1858 and continued trade with a fleet of 17 sailing ships.[7]
In 1861 Lamport and Holt finally committed to operating steamships by obtaining the 1,290 GRTMemnon from Scotts. In 1862Andrew Leslie ofHebburn, County Durham built the 1,372 GRTCopernicus to join her. Each of the two new steamships had an iron hull and was rigged as abrig. They joined James Moss & Co's steamships on a joint trade between Liverpool and the Mediterranean.Copernicus began Lamport and Holt's custom of naming its steamships after notable scientists and artists.[9]
Lamport and Holt operated purely as a partnership for their first two decades of trading. On 18 December 1865 they added a limited company, the Liverpool, Brazil and River Plate Steam Navigation Co Ltd, to own their steamships. However, they continued to own and operate sailing ships under the traditional system of 64 shares.[9]
Until the 1860s theEmpire of Brazil banned foreign ships from the Brazilian coastal shipping trade. Foreign ships could bring imports to Brazil and take exports abroad, and they could move between Brazilian ports in doing so, but they could not take a Brazilian cargo from one Brazilian port to another. In 1862 itsNational Congress voted to suspend thisprotectionism for the years 1863 and 1864. It repeated the suspension several times until 1873, when the suspension was made permanent.[10]
At first Lamport and Holt was the only foreign company to take up the new freedom. By the late 1860s it was running a coastal service betweenRio de Janeiro andRio Grande do Sul.[10] Lamport and Holt won a mail contract from the Brazilian government in 1868, soon followed by one with the UKGeneral Post Office.[9] In 1872 Brazil founded aCompanhia Nacional de Navegação a Vapor ("National Steam Navigation Company"), but Lamport and Holt continued to compete with it for coastal trade.[11]
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Early steamships hadsimple engines with high coal consumption. They offered more reliable journey times than sailing ships, but at a high cost. The large amount of coal that had to be carried reduced space for cargo, so that many longer routes were economically unfeasible. Acompound engine achieved much better fuel economy, but generally required higher boiler pressures than were currently allowed by theBoard of Trade.[a] In 1865 George Holt junior's brother Alfred Holt introducedAgamemnon, the first ship authorised by the Board of Trade to use the higher boiler pressure of 60 psi (410 kPa), so benefitting from hercompound engine. This increased fuel efficiency, reduced coal consumption and enabled steamships to take more trade from sailing ships.[13] Between 1864 and 1867 Lamport and Holt's LB&SP Navigation company bought 20 steamships, all but one of which were newly built to its own specification.[14]
The last sailing ship built for Lamport and Holt was the 1,350 GRTSarah J. Ellis, which was completed inNew Brunswick in 1869. Lamport and Holt sold her in 1871.[15] The last sailing ship in the Lamport and Holt fleet may have been theSouthern Queen, which was bought nearly new in 1866 and sold in 1880.[16]
WJ Lamport died in 1874 aged 59. At the time of his death the fleet had 31 ships and totalled 48,236 GRT. Lamport was succeeded in the partnership by Walter Holland, who had been an apprentice with Lamport at Gibbs, Bright & Co. Another long-serving employee, Charles Jones, was also made a partner.[9]
In 1886 Lamport and Holt got its first contract to carry frozen meat from the River Plate.[17] In 1887 the 1,501 GRT cargo steamshipThales was converted into the partnership's firstrefrigerated cargo ship.[18]
Also in the 1880s Lamport and Holt extended its trade toValparaíso in Chile. This trade continued until 1896.[17]
In 1869 the LB&RP Steam Navigation Co's 1,637 GRT steamshipHalley became the first iron-hulled ship to carry coffee from Brazil to New York. Hitherto it was believed that an iron hull would taint the flavour of coffee, so it had to be carried in wooden-hulled ships. This was the first time a Lamport and Holt ship had sailed directly between South America and the US.[9] Lamport and Holt became a major operator on the route, establishing a triangular trade. Its ships took raw materials such as wheat from the US to the UK, manufactured goods from the UK to Brazil and coffee from Brazil to the US.[13]
A US company, the United States and Brazil Mail Steamship Company, tried to circumvent the triangular trade by taking manufactured products from the US to Brazil and coffee from Brazil to the US. But the company, popularly called simply the "Brazil Line", made the mistake of rejecting compound steam engines and continuing to use inefficient simple ones. Although both the Brazilian and US governments subsidized the Brazil Line, its high fuel costs prevented it from competing with Lamport and Holt's freight rates. In 1875 the US Government ended its subsidy to the Brazil Line, which for the moment left Lamport and Holt without a competitor.[13]
In 1877 the Brazilian EmperorPedro II of Brazil awarded the Brazil Line a new subsidy to operate compound steamships.City of Rio de Janeiro was built inChester, Pennsylvania and launched in 1878. Lamport and Holt lobbied theBrazilian Chamber of Deputies to stop subsidising the Brazil Line. The Emperor temporarily paid the subsidy from his own budget.[19]
Lamport and Holt retaliated by scheduling its ships to leave Brazilian ports a few days before Brazil Line departures, and would even keep a ship stationed in Rio de Janeiro any time that a Brazil Line ship was in port. Lamport and Holt also waged arate war against the Brazil Line. The British company thus managed to secure most of the Brazilian coffee cargoes to the US and left Brazil Line ships often sailing north only half-laden. In 1881 the Brazil Line again withdrew from the competition.[19]City of Rio de Janeiro was sold to thePacific Mail Steamship Company.
In 1883 the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies awarded the Brazil Line a subsidy large enough to compete with Lamport and Holt. In 1890 the Brazil Line introduced two new ships. But UK-owned merchant houses, warehouses, insurers and banks supported Lamport and Holt, and the Brazil Line went bankrupt in 1893.[19]
Since 1866 Lamport and Holt had traded withAntwerp and in 1877 they won a Belgian government mail contract to and from Brazil,Uruguay andArgentina. The contract required all ships on the service to be registered in Belgium, so Lamport and Holt founded a Belgian subsidiary,Societé de Navigation Royale Belge Sud-Americaine. In 1877 the 1,629 GRT steamshipCopernicus was transferred from the LB&RP SN Co to the new company and its registration transferred to Antwerp. In 1878 seven other LB&RP steamships followed. Lamport and Holt's Belgian operation continued until 1908.[20]
As the initial Royal Belge Sud-Americaine fleet came due for replacement, Lamport and Holt tended to replace its ships with others second-hand from LB&RP. The 2,267 GRTGalileo, built in 1873, was transferred in 1886.[21] The 2,280 GRTLeibnitz, also built in 1873, was transferred in 1889. The 2,605 GRTMaskelyne and 2,583 GRTHevelius, both built in 1874, were also transferred in 1889.[22] The 2,610 GRTColeridge, built in 1875, was transferred in 1890.[23]
In 1884 Lamport and Holt formed another subsidiary, the Argentine Steam Lighter Co Ltd, to run a feeder cargo service in theRiver Plate. Its vessels ranged from 300 GRT to 700 GRT. They were registered in Liverpool but theirsurvey port wasMontevideo orBuenos Aires. The company operated until about 1900.[20]
The lighter company's first ship was the 411 GRTAmadeo, built in Liverpool in 1884. In 1892 she was sold toChilean owners and re-registered inPunta Arenas. In the 1930s she was beached atSan Gregorio in theStrait of Magellan. Her rusting hulk survives there to this day.[24]
In 1888 Lamport and Holt had a fleet of 50 ships totalling 93,331 GRT. In 1890 its number of ships peaked at 59, totalling 109,493 GRT.[25] Thereafter the number of ships declined but the average tonnage per ship increased and so did the total tonnage of the fleet.[20] In the 1890s three new partners joined Lamport and Holt: George Holt's nephew George Melly, Charles Jones' son Sidney Jones, and one Arthur Cook. George Holt died in 1896 after more than 50 years in the business.[20]
Between 1898 and 1902 a dozen new steamships were completed for LB&SP. Five of these were designed to carry livestock on the hoof from Argentina to the UK. The smallest, the 4,501 GRTRomney completed in 1899, was built by SirRaylton Dixon and Company on theRiver Tees. The other four were built byD. and W. Henderson and Company on theRiver Clyde. They included thesister shipsRaeburn andRosetti, both completed in 1900, which at 6,511 GRT and 6,540 GRT respectively were the largest ships in the Lamport and Holt fleet.[26][27] All five of the livestock carriers had names beginning with "R", and although they were not all sisters they became called the "R-class".[27]
In 1902Furness Withy put a pair of modern 3,900 GRT cargo liners up for sale.Alexander Stephen and Sons had builtEvangeline in 1900 andLoyalist in 1901. Lamport and Holt bought them for the LB&SP fleet and renamed themTennyson andByron respectively. The pair had more passenger berths than was usual in the LB&SP fleet, so Lamport and Holt put them on the route between New York and the River Plate.[27]
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The increase in passenger capacity on the route was a commercial success, so Lamport and Holt ordered four new liners with even more passenger capacity and refrigerated cargo space. Sir Raylton Dixon completed the 7,542 GRTVelasquez in 1906.Workman, Clark and Company ofBelfast completed the 7,877 GRTVeronese in 1906 and 7,120 GRTVerdi in 1907. Later in 1907 D&W Henderson completed theVoltaire,[27] which at 8,615 GRT was Lamport and Holt's largest ship yet.[28] All five of the new liners had names beginning with "V", and although they were not all sisters they were the first of what became the "V-class".[27]
The route included calls in the Caribbean and atSalvador,Rio de Janeiro andSantos.Tennyson andByron tended to work only as far south as Santos, while the "V-class" continued to the River Plate.[29]
On 16 October 1908Velasquez was heading north with 137 passengers[30] and a cargo of coffee and mail. After leaving Santos she ran into a high sea and thick fog and struck rocks off Ponta da Sela nearIlhabela in Brazil. Her passengers and crew were successfully transferred to herlifeboats, which stood off from the wreck until daybreak. They then took everyone ashore at the beach of Praia do Veloso with no loss of life.[29]
On 17 October Lamport and Holt's 2,679 GRT steamshipMilton left Santos to look forVelasquez. She found and rescued the passengers and crew on the beach, and salvaged the mails and some of the passengers' baggage from the wreck. Attempts to salvageVelasquez were unsuccessful and her insurers wrote her off as atotal loss.[29]
Lamport and Holt replacedVelasquez on the New York – River Plate route with the 10,117 GRT linerVasari, which was built by Sir Raylton Dixon & Co and launched in 1909.[29] She was considerably larger thanVoltaire and the first Lamport and Holt ship of more than 10,000 GRT.
Lamport and Holt decided that its route between Liverpool and the River PlateviaVigo,Leixões andLisbon should also have 10,000 GRT liners, so in 1910[17] it ordered threesister ships from Workman, Clark & Co. The first to be delivered was the 10,327 GRTVandyck, launched in June 1911. She was followed by the 10,660 GRTVauban in January 1912 and 10,494 GRTVestris in May 1912, each of which had berths for slightly more passengers thanVandyck. Each of the trio had a top speed of 15 knots (28 km/h).[31][32]
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Also in 1911 Lamport and Holt was converted from a partnership into a limited company. TheRoyal Mail Steam Packet Company quickly took advantage of this and took over Lamport and Holt. In 1912 management of the company was moved from Lamport and Holt's offices in Fenwick Street, Liverpool to the RMSP's offices in theRoyal Liver Building.[33]
RMSP was also planning a fast ocean liner service with new ships between Britain and the River Plate. Until enough of its new ships were delivered, RMSP charteredVauban to help to inaugurate the route betweenSouthampton and Buenos Aires.[32] This left Lamport and Holt with too few ships to offer the service frequency it had planned from Liverpool.
In 1913 RMSP returnedVauban to Lamport and Holt, having successfully forced the smaller company out of the route. Lamport and Holt then transferredVandyck,Vauban andVestris to strengthen its service between New York and the River Platevia Barbados and Trinidad, where they became the largest, quickest and most luxurious ships on the route.[34]
On 16 January 1913Veronese was heading from Liverpool to Buenos Aires with 144 passengers and 77 crew[35] when she struck rocks offLeça da Palmeira in Portugal in heavy sea and thick fog. The weather was so adverse that the rescue of survivors took 48 hours. Eventually abreeches buoy was secured. More than 200 passengers and crew were rescued. One source states that 27 people were killed,[29] but another source puts the death toll at 38.[35]
When the First World War began in July 1914 Lamport and Holt had a fleet of 36 steamships totalling 198,992 GRT.[25] By the time of theArmistice of 11 November 1918 it had lost 11 ships including three V-class liners.[36]
Lamport and Holt's modern R-class ships, having been built to carry livestock on the hoof from South America, were chartered to carry horses and mules from North America to France. Other Lamport and Holt ships carried horses, vehicles, troops, military mail and other war materials. TheAdmiralty requisitioned the 5,366 GRT cargo steamshipCanning and used her throughout the war as theobservation balloon ship HMSCanning.
Between 1915 and 1917 Lamport and Holt took delivery of six new refrigerated cargo ships to carry frozen meat. They were large for their time, each being more than 7,000 GRT. All six had names beginning with "M". Only three were sisters, but all six became called the "M-class".[18]
To mitigate war losses Lamport and Holt took delivery of two new sister ships from the shipbuilder Archibald McMillan and Son ofDumbarton: the 4,659 GRTSwinburne completed in September 1917[37] and 4,665 GRTSheridan completed in January 1918.[38][39]
In December 1917 Lamport and Holt took over the Nicholas Mihanovich fleet, which operated passenger services on the River Plate and toAsunción andtugs at Buenos Aires andLa Plata.[40]
At the outbreak of war the Germanlight cruiserSMS Karlsruhe was in the Caribbean. On 8 October she intercepted Lamport and Holt's 4,635 GRT cargo shipCervantes about 100 nautical miles (190 km) southwest ofSt Paul's Rocks, removed the crew andscuttled the cargo ship.[36][41]
On 26 October 1914Vandyck was about 690 nautical miles (1,280 km) west of St Paul's Rocks with 200 passengers and a cargo that included about 1,000 tons of frozen meat whenKarlsruhe intercepted her. The cruiser transferredVandyck's passengers and crew to the steamshipAscuncion, took much of Vandyck's cargo and on 27 October scuttledVandyck.[36][42] Lamport and Holt continued to run its New York – River Plate service, but at reduced frequency.[18]
Lamport and Holt survived 1915 without loss. On 9 February 1916 the Germanmerchant raiderMöwe intercepted and sank the company's 3,335 GRT cargo shipHorace about 600 nautical miles (1,100 km) northeast ofPernambuco.[43] On 2 December 1916Möwe intercepted and sank the V-class linerVoltaire about 650 nautical miles (1,200 km) west ofFastnet Rock in theWestern Approaches. Both ships were captured and scuttled without loss of life.[36]
On 17 December 1916SM U-70 torpedoed the 5,587 GRT cargo shipPascal 12 nautical miles (22 km) north of theCasquets in the English Channel, sinking her and killing two of her crew.[44] The submarine capturedPascal'sMaster, who was interned in Germany for the remainder of the war.[36][45]
On 6 April 1916SM U-39 shelled the 5,394 GRT cargo shipColbert in the Mediterranean west ofSardinia, damaging the ship and killing two crewmen.Colbert was a French-registered cargo steamship in which Lamport and Holt held a 49 per cent share. Just over a year later, on 30 April 1917,SM UC-37 torpedoed and sankColbert in the Mediterranean about 15 nautical miles (28 km) northeast of Cape Rose on the coast ofAlgeria. She sank in only five minutes,[46] killing 51 people aboard.[47]
On 28 April 1917SM U-81 torpedoed and sank the 4,309 GRT cargo shipTerence about 150 nautical miles (280 km) northwest by north of Fastnet, killing one crewman.[36][48][49]
On 22 August 1917SM U-53 torpedoed and sank the V-class linerVerdi in the Western Approaches about 115 nautical miles (213 km) northwest by north offEagle Island, County Mayo, killing six of her crew.[36][50][51]
On 26 August 1917 theAustro-Hungarian submarineSM U-14 sank the 4,170 GRTTitian in the Mediterranean about 170 nautical miles (310 km) southeast ofMalta, fortunately without loss of life.[52]Titian was a sister ofTerence which had been sunk only four months previously.[36]U-14's commander wasKKptGeorg von Trapp.[53]
On 3 October 1917 the 7,307 GRT M-class refrigerated shipMemling was damaged by a torpedo in the North Atlantic offBrest, France. With helpMemling reached port, but she was written off as a constructive total loss and scrapped.[36][54]
On 24 December 1917SM U-105 torpedoed and sank the 4,637 GRT cargo shipCanova in the Western Approaches about 15 nautical miles (28 km) south ofMine Head,County Waterford, killing seven crewmen.[36][55][56]
On 6 January 1918SM U-61 torpedoed and sank the 4,186 GRT cargo shipSpenser[18] inSt George's Channel about 35 nautical miles (65 km) northeast ofTuskar Rock, Ireland.[57]
On 27 February 1918SM U-61 torpedoed the 7,402 GRT M-class refrigerated shipMarconi in the Mediterranean offMálaga, killing two crewmen.[58]Marconi remained afloat, reached port and was repaired.[18]
On 28 March 1918 the 5,839 GRT cargo shipDryden struck amine in theRiver Mersey. She managed to reach port and was repaired.[18]
Lamport and Holt replaced First World War losses mostly by buying war standard merchant ships that had been ordered by the UKShipping Controller. The Type B war standard was a 5,030 GRT two-deck dry cargo steamship. In 1919–20 Lamport and Holt bought nine of them, renamed each of them with a name beginning with "B", and they became the "B-class". The Type N war standard was a 6,500 GRT dry cargo steamship of fabricated construction. In 1919 Lamport and Holt bought two thatHarland and Wolff had been building for the Shipping Controller, and had them completed to L&H's own specification asNasmyth andNewton.[59]
Lamport and Holt also ordered ships built entirely to its specification, starting with the 7,327 GRT steamshipLaplace from A McMillan launched in 1919 and 7,453 GRTLaplace from D&W Henderson launched in 1920. A McMillan followed these with Lamport and Holt's firstmotor ships, the 7,412 GRTLeighton and 7,424 GRTLinnell launched in 1921 and 7,417 GRTLassell launched in 1922. Together these two steamships and three motor ships formed the "L-class", each of which had berths for 12 passengers. D&W Henderson also supplied a larger ship, the 8,190 GRTHogarth, launched in 1921.[59]
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In the war the V-class linersVandyck,Voltaire andVerdi had all been sunk.Vandyck andVoltaire had each been more than 10,000 GRT, but Lamport and Holt decided that their replacements should be considerably larger. Accordingly, Workman, Clark & Co launched a new 13,233 GRTVandyck in 1921 and her sister, the new 13,243 GRTVoltaire, in 1923.[60]
Vandyck was Lamport and Holt's firststeam turbine ship. She had four turbines, which drove her twin screws bydouble reduction gearing,[61] giving her a speed of14+1⁄2 knots (27 km/h).[62] However, for the newVoltaire two years later Lamport and Holt reverted to a pair ofquadruple-expansion engines, one driving each of her twin screws.[63] This gaveVoltaire the same speed as her turbine-powered sister.[62]
By 1924 Lamport and Holt's fleet had increased to 50 ships with a combined tonnage of 322,857 GRT.[25]
On 12 November 1928Vestris foundered in a heavy sea in the North Atlantic about 300 miles offHampton Roads[64] with the loss of at least 110 lives. Both the sinking and the loss of life were attributed to Lamport and Holt's negligence. The adverse publicity led the company to withdraw its New York – River Plate passenger service. Its ocean liners returned to Britain and were laid up:Vauban andVandyck at Southampton andVoltaire on theRiver Blackwater, Essex.[65]
TheGreat Depression that began in 1929 caused a globalslump in shipping. Lamport and Holt's parent company RMSP ran into financial trouble and in 1930 the UK Government investigated its affairs. In 1931 RMSP's chairman,Lord Kylsant, was tried in theRoyal Mail Case for misrepresenting the state of the company and was jailed. In 1932 the group was reconstituted as a new company, Royal Mail Lines under a new chairman. In 1934 Lamport and Holt was restructured. The LB&RP Steam Navigation Co took over all the assets of Lamport and Holt, and the new company was called Lamport and Holt Line Ltd.[4]
In 1930 Lamport and Holt owned 41 ships. As the slump deepened the company laid up many of its cargo ships as well as its passenger liners.[65] Between 1930 and 1935 Lamport and Holt sold almost half of its fleet.[66] In 1932 the linersVandyck andVoltaire returned to service ascruise ships. This proved successful, so the pair were refitted for their new purpose and their hulls were repainted in white. From then until 1939 they offered holiday cruises to the Mediterranean, West Africa, islands in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, Norway and the Baltic.[4]
Slowly global trade recovered until Lamport and Holt felt able to add new cargo ships. In 1937 Harland and Wolff completed the 6,065 GRT motor shipDelius. It was Lamport and Holt's first new ship sinceVoltaire in 1923: a gap of 14 years.Delius was joined by her 6,054 GRT sistersDelane andDevis in 1938. Each of these "D-class" ships had berths for 12 passengers. They were of strikingly modern appearance, with clean lines and a single large funnel amidships partly incorporated into the superstructure.[67] In 1940 Harland and Wolff delivered two more D-class ships: 6,244 GRTDebrett and 6,245 GRTDefoe.[68]
When the Second World War began in September 1939 Lamport and Holt had a fleet of 16 steamships and five motorships with a combined tonnage of 141,003 GRT.[25] By the timeJapan capitulated in 1945 the company had lost 14 of its fleet, including its last two V-class liners.[69]
After theSudetenland crisis of September 1938 andGerman occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939 the UK increased its preparations for war. Early in the 1939 seasonVandyck andVoltaire ceased holiday cruising and were converted intotroopships.
Voltaire sailed forBombay in June 1939 and docked in Southampton on 28 August. In OctoberSwan Hunter andWigham Richardson inWallsend started to convert her into anarmed merchant cruiser. In January 1940 she was commissioned as HMSVoltaire. She served in the Mediterranean untilFrance capitulated in June 1940, after which she became a convoy escort in the North Atlantic,[69] and wassunk in April 1941 by theThor.
During the war Lamport and Holt's managing director, Francis Lowe, designed and developed a lifeboat with improved buoyancy and more shelter for its occupants. The "Lowe Life-Boat" was designed to carry 55 people but on 27 January 1944 theEvening Express reported that one had remained afloat during a shipwreck despite carrying 84 men. The newspaper stated that Lowe experimented with his design for three years until it was ready to be tested by the Ministry of War Transport.[70]
In 1944 the Vestey Group, parent company ofBlue Star Line, took over Lamport and Holt.[71]
To mitigate war losses Harland and Wolff built two more D-class motor ships, which were given the same names as the two that had been sunk.[72] The secondDevis was 8,187 GRT and was launched in 1944.[73] The secondDefoe, built to a slightly revised design, was 8,462 GRT and was launched in 1945.[74]
Vandyck was converted into the armed boarding vessel HMSVandyck. On the final day of the Franco-BritishNorwegian campaign, 10 June 1940, German dive bombers bombed and sank her offAndenes in northern Norway, killing two officers and five men.[75] The remainder of her crew reached the shore and was captured.[68]
On 7 July 1940 in the South Atlantic offAscension Island theGerman auxiliary cruiser Thor captured and scuttledDelambre, a Japanese-built 7,032 GRT cargo steamship that Lamport and Holt had bought in 1919.[76]
On 15 October 1940German submarine U-138 torpedoed and sank the 5,327 GRT B-class cargo steamshipBonheur in the Western Approaches about 38 nautical miles (70 km) northwest of theButt of Lewis.[68][77][78]
On 26 February 1941 a GermanFocke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft[79] bombed and sankSwinburne in home waters.[68]
On 9 April 1941 theThor attackedVoltaire about 900 nautical miles (1,700 km) west ofCape Verde.Voltaire returned fire but was outgunned, caught fire and sank. One source states that 81 of her crew were lost;[80] another puts the death toll at 100.[69]
On 30 April 1941U-107 torpedoed and sank the motor shipLassell about 300 nautical miles (560 km) southwest of Cape Verde, killing two of her crew.[81] 25 of the survivors were rescued by theBen Line cargo shipBenvrackie, but 15 of them were killed on 13 May when that ship was also sunk.[68][82]
On 9 June 1941U-46 torpedoed and shelled the 5,623 GRT cargo steamshipPhidias in the mid-Atlantic, sinking her and killing her master and seven other crew.[83][84][85]
On 22 June 1941 theGerman auxiliary cruiser Atlantis attacked the 5,372 GRT B-class cargo steamshipBalzac in the Atlantic northeast of Para. Despite being heavily outgunned and several knots slower than the raider,Balzac returned fire and zig-zagged to evade German shells.Atlantis fired 190 rounds, only four of which hitBalzac. But eventually the raider overtook and sank her. One source states that three members ofBalzac's crew were killed.[86] Another puts the death toll at four.[83]
On 31 January 1942U-98 torpedoed and sank the 5,623 GRT B-class cargo steamshipBiela in the North Atlantic about 400 nautical miles (740 km) southwest ofCape Race,Newfoundland.[83]U-98 saw survivors abandon ship in lifeboats and rafts, but after the U-boat left the area they were never seen again. All hands were lost: a crew of 49[87] or 50 men.[88]
On 24 June 1942 about 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) southeast ofBermuda,U-156 shelled the 4,857 GRT cargo steamshipWillimantic, which Lamport and Holt was managing for theMinistry of War Transport. The steamship caught fire and was abandoned. Six of her complement were killed, another was wounded and her Master was captured.[89][90][91]
On 23 September 1942 the 5,335 GRT B-class cargo steamshipBruyère was approachingFreetown inSierra Leone whenU-125 torpedoed and sank her, fortunately without loss of life.[92][93][94]
Lamport and Holt's next loss was not to enemy action. On 24 September 1942 the D-class cargo motor shipDefoe was in the North Atlantic southwest ofRockall,[95]en route fromManchester in England toFamagusta inCyprus laden with chlorine in drums and aeroplane varnish, when she suffered an explosion. Her bow forward of her foremast was blown off and fire broke out.[92] Six of her crew were killed and the remainder abandoned ship.Defoe drifted for at least two days before sinking.[96]
On 29 October 1942 the L-class cargo steamshipLaplace was about 350 nautical miles (650 km) south-southeast of Cape Agulhas,South Africa whenU-159 torpedoed and sank her. All 61 members of her complement survived.[92][97][98]
On 12 November 1942 the 5,332 GRT B-class cargo steamshipBrowning was laden with munitions, tanks and other materiél for theAllied invasion of French North Africa whenU-593 torpedoed and sank her offOran on the coast of Algeria. One member of her crew, her deck boy, was killed.[99][100][101]
The D-class motor shipDevis was modified as an assault command ship. On 5 July 1943 she was the commodore ship in Convoy KMS 18B for theAllied invasion of Sicily. She was carrying arear-admiral, 289 Canadian troops and two landing craft. That afternoonU-593 torpedoed and sank her northeast of Cape Bengut on the coast of Algeria, killing 52 of the personnel aboard.[102][103][104]
On 21 November 1943 the D-class motor shipDelius in the Western Approaches about 300 nautical miles (560 km) southwest ofLand's End when an enemy aircraft attacked her with aglide bomb. The bomb did not sink her but it killed her Master and three of her crew[105][106] and wounded several other crewmen.[107]
After the German and SovietInvasion of Poland the UK Ministry of War Transport put threeGdynia–America Line passenger liners under Lamport and Holt management. The 6,345 GRTPułaski, 6,852 GRTKościuszko and 14,287 GRT motor shipBatory became troop ships. They retained their Polish officers and crew but each carried a Lamport and Holt liaison officer.[102]
In 1946, theMoWT returnedBatory to Poland, which by then was under Soviet occupation. But the crews ofPułaski andKościuszko refused to be repatriated. The MoWT re-registered the ships in the UK asEmpire Penryn andEmpire Helford respectively, the Polish crews signed UK articles and the ships were sold to Lamport and Holt.[102]
In 1940, theMoWT put a pair ofCompagnie Maritime Belge passenger liners under Lamport and Holt management. The 8,851 GRT sister shipsElisabethville andThysville became troop ships. In 1947 they were renamedEmpire Bure andEmpire Test respectively.[102]
By the end of the war in 1945 Lamport and Holt owned nine cargo ships with a total tonnage of 65,396 GRT.[25] On behalf of the MoWT it was managing several cargo ships and four passenger ships. The company increased its fleet by buyingEmpire ships of various ages and sizes from the MoWT. The largest of these was the 9,942 GRTEmpire Haig, which Lamport and Holt renamedDryden.[108] In 1947 the company bought oneLiberty ship, the 7,256 GRTJohn J.McGraw, which it renamedLassell.[109] In the same year it chartered twoVictory ships from the Panama Shipping Corporation.[110] They were the 7,602 GRTAtlantic City Victory, which was renamedVianna,[111] and the 7,607 GRTEl Reno Victory, which was renamedVilar.[112]
Some ships were also transferred between Lamport and Holt and other Vestey Group subsidiaries, and renamed according to the naming policy of each company. This practice was to continue throughout Lamport and Holt's decades as a member of the Vestey Group. In 1946 the group took overAlfred Booth and Company,[110] which increased the scope for fleet transfers between subsidiaries.
Not until 1952 did Lamport and Holt resume adding ships to its fleet newly built to its own specification. These were two motor ships, the 4,459 GRTSiddons and 8,311 GRTRaeburn, plus the 8,237 GRT steamshipRomney, which became the companyflagship. They were joined in 1953 by the 7,971 GRT motor shipRaphael, which had a top speed of17+1⁄2 knots (32 km/h).[25] In 1953 the fleet was back up to 16 ships and had a combined tonnage of 105,970 GRT.[25] A sister ship forRaphael, the 7,840 GRTRonsard, was built in 1957.[113]
Lamport and Holt continued to buy second-hand ships. They included the 3,022 GRT refrigerated cargo motor shipMosdale in 1954, which Lamport and Holt renamedBalzac and used almost entirely to ship bananas fromSantos in Brazil to mainland Europe or forGeest from the island ofDominica to Britain. Its success led the company to have two new refrigerated ships built: the 3,099 GRTConstable in 1959 and 3,005 GRTChatham in 1960.[113]
In 1967 Booth Line took over Lamport and Holt's services to New York, ending a trade in which Lamport and Holt had been engaged for more or less a century.[113] In 1974 Vestey Group moved Lamport and Holt's head office from the Royal Liver Building toAlbion House, Liverpool.[33] By 1977 Lamport and Holt's fleet was reduced to four ships.[113]
Modernintermodal containers for freight were developed in the 1950s and standardised byISO standards from the end of the 1960s. They were rapidly transforming cargo shipping. Lamport and Holt's traditional break-bulk cargo ships were not equipped to carry containers, but the company believed that it would be some time before all ports in South America would be adapted to handle them.
Since 1967Austin & Pickersgill had been mass-producing a standardised motor ship, the SD14, inSunderland on theRiver Wear. The SD14 was designed as a shelter deck break-bulk cargo ship to replace Liberty ships and Victory ships. Subsequently, A&P adapted the design to carry 118 20-foot containers on deck and on the hatch covers as well as break-bulk cargo in the holds.[114]
Accordingly, in the late 1970s Lamport and Holt ordered four SD14s of 9,324 GRT and 15,265 DWT from A&P. They were launched asBronte.Browning andBoswell in 1979 andBelloc in 1980. They formed a new "B-class", and Lamport and Holt rapidly sold its existing fleet as they were delivered. Unlike previous Lamport and Holt ships, the new B-class had no passenger berths at all. Their introduction brought the company's passenger service to an end after 135 years.[114]
Lamport and Holt operated a joint service between the British Isles and South America with its sister company Blue Star Line and with twoFurness, Withy & Co subsidiaries:Houlder Brothers andRoyal Mail Lines. Between them the four companies traded as the Joint British Line or as BHLR.[114]
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In 1982 theFalklands War and its aftermath rapidly increased demand for container ships to operate between Britain and the South Atlantic. In 1983 Lamport and Holt bought the 12,214 GRT motor shipRuddbank fromBank Line and renamed herRomney. She took government cargo outward from Britain to theFalkland Islands and commercial cargo homeward from Brazil to Europe. Lamport and Holt sold her in 1986 after the UK government completed buildingRAF Mount Pleasant.[114]
In the 1980s BHLR became British South America Lines or Brisa. Its headquarters was moved to London and its service was reorganised with a smaller number of larger ships. Accordingly, Lamport and Holt sold its SD14s between 1981 and 1983, and in 1986 took a share in Blue Star Line's 1979 container shipNew Zealand Star. She was rebuilt inSingapore with a mid-section of greater beam, which increased her capacity from 721 containers to 1,143. Berths were added for 12 passengers. In total the rebuild increased her tonnage from 17,082 GRT to 22,635 GRT.[114] She was repainted in Lamport and Holt colours and in a ceremony on 12 May 1986Lady Soames, the youngest daughter ofWinston Churchill, formally renamed herChurchill.[115]
In 1990Oetker Group took over Furness, Withy and decided to withdraw Houlder Brothers and Royal Mail Lines from the Brisa partnership. Vestey Group decided to continue its remaining trade with South America solely under the Blue Star name. When Brisa Line ceased trading at the end of June 1991Churchill reverted to Blue Star Line under the new nameArgentina Star, and Lamport and Holt ceased trading.
