Blue Funnel Shipping Line – Hong Kong link

HF: Alfred Holt and Company, trading as Blue Funnel Line, was a UK shipping company that was founded in 1866 and operated merchant ships for 122 years. It was one of the UK’s larger shipowning and operating companies, and as such had a significant role in the country’s overseas trade and in the First and Second World Wars.

Foundation and  expansion

Alfred Holt founded the business on 16 January 1866. The main operating subsidiary was the Ocean Steam Ship Company, which owned and operated the majority of the company’s vessels.

A Dutch subsidiary, the Nederlandsche Stoomvaart Mactschappij Oceaan, was founded in 1891, as was the East India Ocean Ship Company, operated from Singapore. This latter was sold in 1899 to Norddeutscher Lloyd. The company acquired the competing China Mutual Steam Navigation Company in 1902, keeping it as a subsidiary company but operating as part of Blue Funnel Line.

The Company’s ships connected the major ports of Shanghai and Hong Kong to Liverpool. The ships crews were Chinese as well as European. As a consequence some Chinese seamen settled in Liverpool from the 1860s to found the oldest Chinese community in Europe.

Ships of the Blue Funnel fleet all had names from classical Greek legend or history. The majority were cargo ships but most of the Ocean SS Co ships also had a capacity for a few passengers. The line also had a small number of purely passenger vessels.

Nestor, launched 7 December 1912 and Ulysses, launched 5 July 1913, are examples of large cargo passenger vessels entering the Line’s service at the time. Both ships were built in Belfast by Workman, Clark and Company with a length of 580 ft (and 176.8m) and 14,500 gross tons. Passenger accomodation were for first class only and seven cargo holds, one and a ‘tween decks space fitted for refrigerated meat, dairy and fruit cargoes provided accomodation of the largest consignments.

In the 1920s Blue Funnel became the first British shipping company to employ a woman marine engineer.

Victoria Drummond served with the company three times: firstly as Tenth Engineer in the liner Anchises 1922-24, then as a refrigeration engineer on the refrigerated cargo ship Perseus in 1943 and finally as resident engineer at Caledon Shipbuilding in Dundee supervising the completion of Rhexenor and Stentor in 1946. These were two of the first new ships built for Blue Funnel to replace its Second World War losses.

The company expanded in 1937 through the acquisition of the Glen Line in 1935, that provided cargo and passenger service to the Far East from eastern English ports such as London. The overall managing director, C.E.Wurtzburg, brought Herbert Gladstone McDavid to London from the Company’s Liverpool office as director of the new acquisition and profits increased. Eight new Glenearn ships were ordered, four from UK shipyards and four from abroad but not all were delivered when the Second World War started.

Source: Wikipedia

This article was first posted on 11th July 2025.

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