White Star Line

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If you are looking for the Babylon 5 starships, see the article White Star. For the Canadian indie rock band, see White Star Line (band).

The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, more commonly known as The White Star Line was a prominent shipping company, most famous for its ill-fated luxury flagship, the RMS Titanic.

1 Early history
2 The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company
3 White Star Line ships with year of acquisition
4 Notable captains
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

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Early history

It was founded in Liverpool as the White Star Line by John Pilkington and Henry Threlfall Wilson, and focused on the Australian trade, which had recently increased following the discovery of gold there. The fleet initially consisted of chartered sailing ships, the Blue Jacket (later renamed White Star), the Red Jacket, the Ellen and the Iowa but it acquired its first steamship in 1863 with the Royal Standard. One notable ship was Tayleur, whose fate would haunt the company.

It merged with other small lines, the Black Ball and Eagle Lines to form a conglomerate called the Liverpool, Melbourne and Oriental Steam Navigation Company Limited. This did not prosper and the company broke away and concentrated on the Liverpool to New York service. Heavy investment in new ships was financed by borrowing, but the company's bank, the Royal Bank of Liverpool, failed in October 1867 leaving the company with an outstanding debt of £527,000.

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The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company

Thomas Ismay, a director of the National Line, purchased the house flag, trade name and goodwill of the bankrupt company for 1,000 pounds sterling on 18 January, 1868, with the intention of operating large ships on the North Atlantic service.

He had formed a partnership with Sir Edward Harland of the shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, to provide the ships and the shipbuilders received their first orders on 30 July, 1869. The agreement was that Harland and Wolff would build the ships at cost plus a fixed percentage and would not build any vessels for the White Star's rivals. In 1870 William Imrie joined the managing company.

Four ships were initially constructed for the Oceanic class; the Oceanic (I), Atlantic, Baltic, and Republic and the line began operating again in 1871 between New York and Liverpool (later calling in at Queenstown (Cobh)).

As the first ship was being commissioned, Ismay formed the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company to operate the steamers in the process of construction.

It was (and still is) common for shipping lines to have a common theme for the names of its ships. In the case of the White Star Line, this was to use the suffix ic (e.g. Titanic, in contrast to Cunard's use of ia (e.g. Carpathia). The line also adopted a buff-coloured funnel with a black top as a distinguishing feature for its ships, as well as its distinctive house flag (or burgee), a red broad pennant with two tails with a white five-pointed star.

For the rest of the 19th century the White Star Line would own such famous ships as Britannic (I), Germanic, Teutonic & Majestic (I). Several of these ships would eventually take the Blue Riband, awarded to the fastest ship to make the Atlantic crossing.

In 1899, Thomas Ismay commissioned one of the most beautiful steam ships constructed during the 19th century, the Oceanic (II). She was the first ship to exceed the Great Eastern in length (although not tonnage). The building of this ship marked the point where White Star departed from competition in speed with her rivals and concentrated solely on comfort and economy of operation.

In the 19th and early 20th century, the efficiency of coal engines only allowed a feasible speed of about 24 knots (44.4 km/h/27.6 mph). Going above this speed introduced a logarithmic proportion in direct relation to fuel consumption and speed, in that for every knot increased, the required fuel was the previous fuel required plus itself. For this reason, the White Star Line committed to comfort and reliability rather than to speed. As an example, the Titanic was designed for travel at 21 knots (39 km/h), while the Cunard Line's Mauretania held the speed record in 1926 for 27 knots (48 km/h).

In 1902, the White Star Line was absorbed into the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM), a large American shipping conglomerate. By 1903, IMM had managed to absorb the American Line, Dominion Line, Atlantic Transport Line, Leyland Line, and Red Star Line. They also came to trade agreements with the German lines Hamburg-Amerika and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Bruce Ismay ceded control to IMM in the face of intense pressure from shareholders and J.P. Morgan, who threatened a rate war.

The Cunard Line was the direct competition to White Star Line as their fame and success mounted. As a competition piece, the White Star Line began construction on their new series, the Olympic class; the RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic, and RMS Britannic. Britannic was originally to have been named Gigantic, but her name was changed shortly after the sinking of Titanic. [1].

The history of the White Star Line was marked by some terrible disasters as well as a lot of bad luck. In 1873 the Atlantic was wrecked near Halifax, costing 585 lives. In 1893, the Naronic vanished with 74 passengers and crew after departing Liverpool for New York. In 1909 the Republic was lost after a collision with the liner SS Florida. In September 1911, the Olympic was involved in a collision with the warship Hawke in the Solent, badly damaging both ships.

In April 1912, the Titanic was lost after an historic iceberg collision. The first White Star ship lost during World War I was Arabic (II), torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale Ireland on 19 August 1915 killing 44. The following November, the third sister ship of Titanic, HM Hospital Ship Britannic, was lost after striking a mine in the Kea Channel off Greece. She sank in less than 50 minutes with the loss of 21 lives and was the largest vessel sunk in the war. Of the three Olympic class ships, two never completed a commercial voyage. However, the Olympic, the first of the three to be built, did have a long and successful career and was the only merchant ship in World War I known to have sunk a warship. In 1934, while steaming in a fog, the Olympic accidentally rammed the Nantucket Lightship, sinking it and killing seven of the crew.

In 1933, White Star and Cunard were both in serious financial difficulties because of the depression, falling passenger numbers and the advanced age of their fleets, particularly, White Star's. Work had been halted on Cunards's new giant, Hull 534 (later the RMS Queen Mary), in 1931, to save money. In 1933, the British government agreed to provide assistance to the two on the condition that they merge. The agreement was completed on 30 December 1933.

The merger took place on the 10th May, 1934, creating Cunard-White Star Limited, owned 62% by Cunard and 38% by White Star's creditors. A year after this merger the last of the "Olympic Class" ships the RMS Olympic was taken off active duty and scrapped two years later in 1937. In 1947, Cunard acquired the 38% of Cunard White Star it didn't already own, and on 31 December 1949, it acquired Cunard White Star's assets and operations, and reverted to using the name "Cunard." After the 1934 merger, the house flags of both lines were flown on all its ships until 1950, with each ship flying the flag of its original owner above the other; after 1950, only Georgic and Britannic continued to fly the White Star burgee on a regular basis..

The remaining White Star ship, Georgic, continued in White Star livery and flew the White Star house flag---although below the Cunard flag after 1950---until it were scrapped in 1956.

The French passenger tender Nomadic, which is believed to be the last surviving vessel of the White Star Line, was purchased by the Northern Ireland Office in January 2006. Its new owners expressed the hope of returning the Nomadic to Belfast, its place of construction, as the centerpiece of a museum dedicated to the history of Atlantic steam.

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