Coast Lines

Coast Lines Ltd
Industry Shipping
Successor P&O Ferries
Founded 1917
Founder Owen Philipps, 1st Baron Kylsant
Defunct 1971
Headquarters Liverpool
Area served
 England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Channel Islands

Coast Lines Limited provided shipping services in the United Kingdom from 1917 to 1971.[1]

History

Powell, Bacon and Hough Lines Ltd was formed in 1913 in Liverpool. The name of Coast Lines Limited was adopted in 1917, when the company was purchased by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company at a cost of £800,000.[2] (equivalent to £40,430,070 in 2015),[3]

In 1931, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was dissolved after the Royal Mail Case and the chairman Lord Kylsant was imprisoned in 1931 for misrepresenting the state of the company to shareholders.[4] Coast Lines achieved independence under the chairmanship of Sir Alfred Read (1871-1955), who had previously been a director.

From 1917 to 1951, Coast Lines acquired a controlling interest in a large number of coastal shipping companies, eventually numbering about twenty, of which the most important were:

By 1951, the company operated a fleet of 109 ships, which carried over four million tons of cargo, over half a million head of livestock, and more than a million passengers.

The British and Irish Steam Packet Company and the City of Cork Steam Packet Company were sold off in 1965 to the Irish Government.

The remains of the company was acquired by P&O Ferries in 1971 [5]

References

  1. ↑ Sea breezes: the ship lovers' digest: 1949
  2. ↑ A business of national importance: the Royal Mail Shipping Group, 1902-1937 By Edwin Green, Michael S. Moss
  3. ↑ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2016), "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
  4. ↑ Shipping Lines: Royal Mail Steam Packet Company
  5. ↑ 'The world's largest coaster fleet', Sea Breezes, E.R. Reader, February 1949.
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