A R Marty et Cie, Hong Kong trading house, established 1874 and Marty et d’Abbadie, Haiphong, Indochina
“The French merchant Auguste Raphael Marty (1841–1914) established his own trading house, A. R. Marty et Cie, in Hong Kong in 1874.
Information about this Hong Kong company appears thin on the ground – further details would be gratefully received.
Stephen Davies suggests that Marty in HK was only ever a shipping company office.
As one of the pioneers their firm soon became one of the most important French businesses in the Far East, operating the Subsidised River Shipping Service along the Tonkin coast and on the Red River, in addition to a regular ocean going shipping service between Haiphong and Hong Kong with occasional stopovers at Pakhoi, Hoihow, and Kwang-chow-wan.
Canadian Pacific Line SS Princess May, ex-Hating built 1888, purchased 1905 from Marty & D’Abbadie, Haiphong. Courtesy: www.simplonpc.co.uk
Chinese merchants regularly chartered Marty’s steamers for shipping goods and passengers. Competition with other Western shipping companies, especially in the lucrative rice trade, was intensive but Marty managed to maintain his business until his death and his company winded up soon after World War One.” (1)
This article was first posted on 18th May 2017.
Sources: Conference Paper: Connecting French Indochina with Hong Kong: the Shipping Company Marty et d’Abbadie, 1886-1920s, B Becker, 2016, The Hong Kong University Scholars Hub
Related Indhhk articles:
see the e-book:
France and Germany in the South China Sea, c. 1840-1930: Maritime competition and Imperial Power Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies, Bert Becker, Springer Nature, 2021
in which he A.R. MARTY et d’ABBADIE company is studied in detail
(MARTY is quotes 492 times in this book)