International Merchant Shipping in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

2008 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Sea ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
Merchant Marine ◽  
International Context ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Merchant Shipping

This book compiles seven essays concerning changes to merchant shipping over the hundred and fifty years between 1850 and 2000, and spanning a range of countries, with particular focus on Norway, Greece, Japan, and England. The essays are linked by the theme of change: from traditional to modern shipping; in fluctuating cargo demands; from sail to steam; wood to iron; in improvements in communication technologies; in political natures and affiliations; in seafaring skillsets; in the advent of containerisation and advent of globalisation. The overall aim is to construct a solid international context for the merchant shipping industry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - primarily to aid a major Norwegian deep-sea merchant marine project. The book contains an introduction that sets out these aims, and seven essays by maritime historians which form part of the international contextual whole, though all can be approached individually.

The American Shipping Industry since 1914

1954 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. B. Hutchins
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
World War I ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
The United States ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
World War ◽  
Merchant Marine ◽  
The World ◽  
Merchant Shipping

In 1914 the United States had tess than 5 per cent of the merchant shipping tonnage of the world; in 1952 it had 32 per cent of a vastly larger world tonnage, although its basic competitive disadvantages had probably increased in the intervening years. This enormous growth of the American fleet resulted from the changes in public policy which accompanied a new view of the American role in world affairs. This article analyzes the major developments in the American merchant marine, both deep-sea and coastwise, since World War I.

The work of the Discovery Committee

1950 ◽  
Vol 202 (1068) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Deep Water ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Original Form ◽  
The Past ◽  
Scientific Staff ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Whaling Industry ◽  
Major Industry ◽  
Colonial Office

The geographical field in which most of the Discovery Committee’s work has been carried out during the past 25 years is the Southern Ocean. This zone of continuous deep water, very rich in marine fife, supports one major industry—the whaling industry—but is otherwise little developed as yet, and seldom visited. It is not easy to find a short descriptive label for the work itself, but nearly all of it comes under the headings of deep-sea oceanography, whales and whaling, or Antarctic geography, and much of it is concerned with the interrelations of these subjects. Since the beginning in 1924 the Discovery Committee has worked under the Colonial Office, but in 1949 the Committee’s functions, together with the scientific staff, the ships, and other assets, were taken over by the Admiralty, and now form part of the new National Institute of Oceanography. The Discovery Committee, in its original form, has been dissolved, but it is encouraging to know that the continuation of its work is assured.

War and the Shipping Industry

2012 ◽  
pp. 303-325
Author(s):  
Ralph Davis
Keyword(s):  
Financial Impact ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
Financial Cost ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Merchant Ship ◽  
Cost Of War ◽  
Merchant Shipping ◽  
The Government ◽  
Insurance Rates ◽  
Peace And War

This chapter considers the financial impact of war on British shipping during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It attempts to discern the number of merchant ship losses during the Anglo-Spanish War, Anglo-French War, Seven Years’ War, and the Dutch Wars by scrutinising Admiralty records of loss estimates. It examines privateering activity; wartime insurance rates; the rise in seafaring wages; naval impressment; the disruption to trade cycles; the hiring of ships by the government; and a contrast of tonnage rates between periods of peace and war to determine the financial cost of war to the shipping industry. It concludes that though war made many demands of the merchant shipping industry, merchants and shipowners knew that successful campaigns would lead to the expansion of a British shipping monopoly, and so deemed war financially worthwhile in the long run.

British Shipping and World Competition

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
S G Sturmey
Keyword(s):  
Economic Structure ◽  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Maritime History ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
International Context ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Comprehensive Index ◽  
Initial Release ◽  
The World

This work is a reprint of a 1962 book, British Shipping and World Competition, by maritime economist Dr S. G. Sturmey. It seeks to explain why the tonnage of ships registered in the United Kingdom declined from forty-five percent of the world total in 1900, to sixteen percent by 1960. It presents four possible answers and proceeds to examine them in detail: changes in approaches to competition resulting in changes to the economic structure of the industry; international interference in competitive structures; unrelated factors, such as government policies that didn’t directly concern shipping but still caused an impact; and the internal actions within British shipping relating to changes in industrial circumstances. It is comprised of fifteen chapters, an appendix tabling the contribution of British shipping to the balance of payments, a bibliography, comprehensive index, epilogue, and a foreword from the series editor which states that the Sturmey’s arguments remain resonant in the field of maritime history in the present day. Sturmey makes a particular effort to place the activity in the British shipping industry into an international context for the sake of comparative analysis. It concludes that the decline of the industry was primarily due to internal decision-making rather than external factors - a conclusion that was considered divisive and provocative upon initial release, but has stood the test of time. The epilogue attempts to predict the future of British shipping post-1960, suggesting shipowners could improve the industry’s prospects: however, few of these predictions came to be.

In the inventories of deceased British merchant seafarers: Exploring merchant shipping and material culture, 1860–1880

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 330-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meaghan Walker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Maritime History ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Merchant Marine ◽  
Material Wealth ◽  
Working People ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Merchant Shipping

Between 1860 and 1880, the years which hold the richest collection of log books at the Maritime History Archive in St. John’s, NL, an average of 4,400 seafarers died per year working in the British merchant marine. Each of these deaths potentially produced an inventory of effects showing the material wealth of working people at sea. These inventories reveal the material possessions of late nineteenth-century seafarers, particularly young working-class men who exposed themselves most to danger but also were the most numerous demographic. By analyzing both what these inventories contain, but also what inventories are missing, it is possible to understand material factors stemming from changing dynamics in a workforce undergoing technological and demographical change.

Growth, Diversification and Globalization: Main Trends in International Shipping since 1850

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yrjö Kaukiainen
Keyword(s):  
Shipping Industry ◽  
Transport Costs ◽  
International Shipping ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
The Relationship

This essay analyses the vast changes in the shipping industry across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries due to industrialisation, the internationalised economy, and globalisation. The aim is to provide a solid context from which the following essays can spring. Author Yrjo Kaukiainen particularly focuses on the relationship between the growth of trade and provision of shipping tonnage, deemed inextricable from one another. He then demonstrates that present-day ocean transport costs average only a fifth of those of 1850.

Tramp-Shipping Regions

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Craig
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Prince Edward Island ◽  
Shipping Industry ◽  
The West ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
South Wales ◽  
History Of ◽  
British North American ◽  
Tramp Shipping

This final section makes up the majority of the journal. Craig explores six individual regions and unique operations within the tramp-shipping industires. The first subsection is devoted to Wales, and considers the ports and shipping industry of Glamorgan between 1750 and 1914; the actions of the Radcliffe Company in South Wales between 1882-1921; the specifics of the 1860s shipping industry at Llanelli; the specifics of the 1840s shipping industry in Carmarthenshire; and the Hetty Ellen of Aberystwyth and Doctor Livingstone. The second considers the Northwest, examining the River Dee during the Eighteenth century and the shipbuilding and shipping industry of Chester during the Nineteenth. The third looks at the West Country, tracing the history of mercantile shipping in Devon between 1750 and 1920. The fourth looks at the Northeast and the shipbuilding William Gray and Company of Hartlepool. The fifth concerns the Southeast and the deep-sea shipping of Thanet in the mid-Eighteenth century. The final subsection considers the British Empire in Canada, studying the British and British North-American Shipbuilding industry in the early Nineteenth century, with particular focus on Prince Edward Island. Each section contains a thorough history, including timelines, tables, and maps, where relevant.

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