在新加坡运营的轮船公司
STEAMSHIP COMPANIES OPERATING in and from SINGAPORE and the STRAITS
Straits Steamship Company Ltd - The Early Years, 1890-1918
Straits Chinese Steamship Owners in the China-Straits Trade 1890s-1949
Norwegian Passenger-Carrying ‘China Coasters’ Trading South China/ Southeast Asia 1896-1977
Chip Hwa Shipping & Trading Co. Ltd (1948)
Teck Hwa Shipping Co. Ltd (1956)
Sverre Berg, Thoresen & Co. and the long-lived m.v. KURIMARAU
Singapore Harbour's Breakwater, Quarantine, Coal and Oil Hulks
Blue Funnel Line / Ocean S.S. Co. Ltd. / East Indian Ocean S.S. Co. Ltd.
HEBE
Contained in the PDF file is a detailed history of the feeder lines based in Singapore which served the mainline ships of the Blue Funnel Line operating between the U.K. and the Far East. The illustrated history and fleetlist of nearly 50 pages tells of the ships which operated on these services from GANYMEDE in 1879 until the last sailing of CENTAUR at the end of 1983. The Chinese School painting above shows HEBE built for the Deli feeder line in 1885. The list includes many rare photographs. At the bottom of our JAPAN page we have a selected photographs of Blue Funnel ships operating on the mainline servce to the Far East.
REFERENCE MATERIAL (PDF FORMAT)
Straits Steamship Company Ltd.
KINTA
Straits Steamship Company Ltd - The Early Years, 1890-1918 represents a new look at the beginnings of this notable British firm taking forward the epic research on this company by K. G. Tregonning and Bill Laxon to incorporate new information, details and illustrations on the early period now available, principally through the internet. The summary history and illustrated fleet list in the pdf file accessed though the icon at the right details the initial acquired vessels and then the ships especially built for its Singapore-based short sea services. One of these successful designs is illustrated in the colorized photograph above from the Dundee City Archives of KINTA, depicted on completion at Dundee in 1907.
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Straits Chinese shipowners
HONG BEE
The PDF file, carefully researched by Howard, focuses on leading Straits Chinese shipowners who operated steamships in the China-Straits passenger trade from the 19th century until 1949. The Singapore-based Wee Bin Kongsi, tracing back to the 1860s, built up an extensive network of lines across the Malay Archipelago before around 1891 entering the China trade. The principal, Lim Ho Puah and his son Lim Peng Siang formed the Ho Hong S.S. Co. Ltd in 1913. This venture was contemporary with Lim Chin Song’s Seang Line of steamers from Rangoon. Koe Guan’s involvement in the China trade was shortlived, only from 1903 to 1906, but the principals Khaw Sim Bee and Khaw Joo Tok of Penang, maintained a large network of steamship services north of Singapore, from 1907 as Eastern S.S. Co. Ltd. The involvement of Java’s ‘sugar king’ Oei Tiong Ham from 1901 to 1913 was also brief but he likewise retained a local shipping interest trading between Singapore and the Dutch East Indies through Heap Eng Moh S.S. Co. in Singapore. The trade was brought to a virtual conclusion with World War II and the subsequent formation of the People's Republic of China which for a long period generally prohibited the movement of people across its borders. The photographs here show two of the ships involved. Above in a photo from the late Bill Laxon's collection is HONG BEE which operated on the route from 1913 until 1926. Second, below in a colorized underway view from Stephen's collection, is the last ship in this trade HONG SIANG which operated on the route for Ho Hong S.S. Co. Ltd until September 1949.
HONG SIANG
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Marty & d'Abbadie
HANOI
A company based in French Indochina which developed services to China was La Soc. Service Subventionne des Correspondences Fluviales au Tonkin, Haiphong, better known as Marty & d'Abbadie. The above image is of the HANOI, built in Sunderland for that owner in 1893. The image is taken from a postcard found in the Northeast of the United States about 50 years ago by the late Charles Schell, father of maritime photographer Bill (W. Schell). It notates a voyage taken from Haiphong to Hong Kong in 1907. An illustrated fleet list is in the PDF file.
REFERENCE MATERIAL (PDF FORMAT)
Norwegian Shipping Companies
HAI LEE
Norwegian shipping companies were active in the period from 1896 in building ships for charter by local rice millers, merchants and brokers to operate between South China and Southeast Asia. They developed their versions of the 'China Coasters' that had originated with British companies and were a leading force in building a succession of ships designed to carry Chinese emigrants/workers as deck passengers. One firm, Bruusgaard, Kiøsterud & Co., emerged as a South China-based operator, and such passenger operations continued on until air travel took over around 1970. This study is in two parts in the PDF files. The first is a 19 page textual history and analysis that we have prepared, including a few photographs. The second is a detailed and well-illustrated fleet list of all the known the Norwegian passenger ships in this trade. Shown above is perhaps the most developed of the pre-WWII ships, HAI LEE of 1934, depicted in Norwegian waters on completion and still not fitted with all her lifeboats. The photograph is from the collection of H. Larsson-Feddes as presented at sjohistorie.net and we have edited it to show the Bruusgaard, Kiøsterud & Co. company colours.
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H.M.H. Nemazee
ALMERIA
H.M.H. Nemazee of Persian origins established a subsidiary in Hong Kong in 1855 and undertook the firm's first known steamship purchase in 1918. The concern initially acquired several steamers for coastal or regional trading but by mid-1923 had brought together a fleet of 13 steamers with a combined gross tonnage of almost 65,000 tons, usually cargo-liners with 'tween deck accommodation for a large number of unberthed passengers. With the exception of the China Merchants fleet, this was the largest fleet deployed by a non-British/European shipowner between Suez and Japan, and the period is covered by our short history and fleet list in the PDF file. Acquisitions ceased between 1928 and 1940 but many purchases were made in the periods 1940-41 and 1946-51 and these will be the subject of a future post. Shown above is Nemazee’s ALMERIA, probably at Tanjung Priok, Java in 1922/23 while on China Mail charter (WSPL).
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Chip Hwa Shipping & Trading Co. Ltd.
GLORY
Founded in Singapore in 1948 by Fukienese Lou Gaw Tong who owned the Aik Hong Rice Mill in Rangoon, this company initially sought to buy up surplus British military vessels and refit them to ship paddy rice down the Irrawaddy to the mills in Rangoon, and the milled rice from Rangoon to Singapore. In the mid-1950s Lou began to diversify Chip Hwa into general dry cargo shipping, including the conversion of tankers to dry cargo vessels. A subsidiary was registered in Hong Kong and after Lou's death in 1960 the fleet expanded significantly with good general cargo tonnage, all motorships and a full fleetlist is included in the PDF file. But by 1970 the shipowning side of the business had ended. The two vessels depicted here are converted tanker GLORY above, shown at Singapore in April 1963 (Dr. George Wilson) and KIAN AUN below, also at Singapore, in 1968
KIAN AUN
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Teck Hwa Shipping Co. Ltd.
RUPIT
Singapore company Teck Hwa Shipping Co. Ltd, an offshore business for Indonesian associates, flourished between 1959 and 1965. The ships, many inherited from the Dutch Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM) fleet, traded regionally across Southeast Asia and extending as far as Bombay to the West and Hong Kong to the East. In terms of cargo, the staple was rice from Rangoon or the southwestern Burmese port of Akyab (now Sittwei), or sometimes Bangkok, to Malayan ports (Penang, Port Swettenham, Malacca), Singapore, or Indonesia. The company continued as a shipowner until the end of 1967 and seems to have carried on some activity as an agent and broker until voluntary liquidation, which was agreed by an extraordinary general meeting on 30 October 1979. In the PDF file we have a study prepared by Howard which includes a well-illustrated fleetlist, and an account by Howard of his 1973 voyage from Makassar to Bitung by KOMERING. Illustrated above from a slide by the late Bill Volum (NAA collection) is Teck Hwa motorship RUPIT at Singapore.
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Chip Seng Co. Ltd.
VENDERS
Chip Seng Co. was set up about 1958 by Wee Mon-Cheng, who previously had worked for rice trader and shipowner Chip Hwa (q.v.). He bought his first ship in 1960 and gradually built up a diverse fleet registered variously in Singapore, Hong Kong and Panama. He was never a ship operator but chartered out, mainly to Japanese firms, for some of which he acted as agent in Singapore. Nevertheless, shipowning was always subsidiary to his main interest in banking. In later years he became Singapore's ambassador to Japan. The two photos are of, above, VENDERS ex MUI HOCK (1936) in Malacca Strait by Peter Foxley (coll. W. Schell) and below the 'Fort'-type PROGRESS (1943) at Aden by Ron Sherlock (coll. W. Schell).
PROGRESS
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Sverre Berg
SIRIVANNICH
A small ship that was active in Southeast Asia for over 30 years was KURIMARAU, later known as the Thai-flag SIRIVANNICH, as shown in the Ian Ewards photograph below taken at Penang in May 1990. With a life of sixty-five years, her remarkable story and that of one of her longtime owners is told in Sverre Berg, Thoresen & Co. and the long-lived m.v. Kurimarau in the PDF file.
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Chip Hwa Shipping & Trading Co. Ltd.
WING ON
Founded in Singapore in 1948 by Fukienese Lou Gaw Tong who owned the Aik Hong Rice Mill in Rangoon, this company initially sought to buy up surplus British military vessels and refit them to ship paddy rice down the Irrawaddy to the mills in Rangoon, and the milled rice from Rangoon to Singapore. In the mid-1950s Lou began to diversify Chip Hwa into general dry cargo shipping, including the conversion of tankers to dry cargo vessels. A subsidiary was registered in Hong Kong and after Lou's death in 1960 the fleet expanded significantly with good general cargo tonnage, all motorships and a full fleetlist is included in the PDF file. But by 1970 the shipowning side of the business had ended. The vessel depicted above at Fremantle in the colours of Hong Kong unit Hwa Aun Co. (HK) Ltd is WING ON, acquired in 1957 and initially registered in Singapore (photo John Greenhill/Rex Cox, edit SK).
REFERENCE MATERIAL (PDF FORMAT)