The liners at that time were
not fast like their counterparts on the North Atlantic but
were broader in the beam and comfortable. The livery adopted
by P&O was a black hull, buff deck housing and black masts
and funnels. Travelling on board a P&O steamship was an
extension of living in the British 'Raj' for the sahibs and
memsahibs. The crews were generally made up of Indians in
the engine-room, Lascars on deck and stewards from the Portuguese
colony of Goa.. It is widely believed that the term 'posh'
originated in the days when influential passengers had their
tickets stamped P.O.S.H indicating that their cabins ware
to be located port outwards, starboard home, thus benefiting
from being on the cooler side of the ship at all times. Remember,
air conditioning was a long way in the future and relief from
the hot temperatures was by means of fans which merely circulated
warm air.
The passenger lists at the
time would be made up of civil servants bound for India, diplomats,
soldiers, bankers, industrialists, missionaries and young
ladies who were affectionately referred to as the 'fishing
fleet'; young ladies looking for husbands who, if they failed
to get a catch were then known as the 'returned empties'.
The captains for the vessels were only responsible to God
and the Board of Directors, and complaints were not welcomed.
P&O was Britain's premier
shipping company and an Imperial institution. Aside from its
normal trading activities the company chartered vessels to
the government to be used as hospital ships and troop transports
and in 1911allowed the newly built Medina to be used as the
Royal Yacht at the Delhi Durbar.
The Britannia
Oil by W.Ayers-Ingram (P&O Lines)
The Victoria
(P&O Lines)
The saloon on the Sumatra-1875
(Illustrated London News)
Queen Victoria celebrated her
Golden Jubilee in 1887 and to pay tribute to her and their
own success P&O built four 6000 ton "Jubilee"
ships the Victoria, the Britannia, the Oceania and the Arcadia.
The company was able to make this patriotic, and ultimately
profitable, gesture because of its success in meeting the
challenge that the opening of the Suez Canal had presented.
By this time the nature of P&O's trade had altered radically.
In the early days revenue had been derived from the mail contracts,
and the carriage of passengers and a small quantity of luxury
cargoes. By 1887 ships were being constructed with steel,
equipped with the compound engine and, above all, getting
larger and faster. The average tonnage of the ships was around
4000 tons, twice the size of those afloat 20 years earlier.
Consequently, cargo spaces were larger and cargo-carrying
became the main source of revenue. The size of the fleet had,
by 1887, increased from 80,000 tons to 200,000 tons and the
run to Bombay had been reduced by more than a week.
Over the years that followed
P&O continued to grow in size due, in many respects, to
corporate acquisition. The Blue Anchor Line, which, for years,
had carried immigrants to Australia via the Cape of Good Hope,
was acquired in 1910. The nature of the trade was continued
but the name of the company was changed to the P&O Branch
Line.
Another major company operating
on the eastern routes was the British India Line and in 1914
the two companies merged. At an extraordinary general meeting
convened to approve the merger the Chairman of P&O said
the following . 'It means that we (the merged group) command
the employment of capital of 15 millions sterling. It means
that we command the employment of a tonnage of a million and
a quarter tons, and this tonnage and this capital will be
worked with a common aim and purpose for the prosperity of
a great national enterprise.
The Himalaya
(Water colour by WW Lloyd 1892)
(P&O Lines)
The Vectis
Gouache by RH Neville-Cumming 1904
(P&O Lines)
Lord Inchcape
Chairman 1915-1932
(P&O Lines)
The expansion continued and
by the end of the First World War the P&O Group had acquired
the New Zealand Shipping Company in 1916, the Union Steamship
Company of New Zealand, the Hain Steamship Company and the
Nourse Line in 1917. The company controlled over 1,500,000
tons of shipping in spite of having lost half a million tons
to German U-boats and surface raiders. When the war broke
out P&O and BI had some 200 ships at sea but by the end
of 1914 more than half had been requisitioned by the British
government and converted into armed merchant cruisers, troopships
and transports for munitions and supplies. A total of 34 ships,
including some of the finest liners, were lost as a result
of enemy action and many more were involved in, now forgotten,
actions. The remaining ships continued to cope as best as
they could with the increased volume of wartime mail. The
P&O Group as a whole lost 85 ships during the hostilities.
The acquisition policy continued
after the war and in 1919 the company acquired interests in
the Orient Line and the Khedivial Mail Company. In 1920 the
General Steam Navigation Company, the oldest steamship company
to run regular deep sea services, joined the group. It is
significant to note that the small steamers of the GSNC were
were chartered by Anderson and Willcox in the early days.
By the mid 1920's and under the Chairmanship of Lord Inchcape
who headed the company from 1915 until 1932, the combined
fleets reached a peak of nearly 500 ships in a variety of
trades.
Along with most other
companies, P&O was affected by the downturn of the British
economy and the world depression which followed the Wall Street
crash in 1929. Labour disputes delayed the expansion of the
fleet and the conversion from coal to oil. The annual report
for 1931 made bad reading and listed a catalogue of disasters
to give any board of directors sleepless nights. Major flooding
of the River Yangtse prevented access to Hankow. Depression
in Malaya and Ceylon caused a serious fall in rubber prices.
There was unrest and an anti-foreign boycott in India with
a marked decrease in imports and exports. The grim situation
was summarised in one sentence. 'In almost all the company's
trades there has been a decrease in shipments'.
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