Steamship Companies Operating
from SINGAPORE and the Straits
在新加坡运营的轮船公司
Blue Funnel Line/Ocean S.S. Co. Ltd/East Indian Ocean S.S. Co. Ltd and other Singapore-based feeder lines (1881)
The KPM’s Original Thirteen and the Long Afterlives in China and Japan of VAN DIEMEN, SPEELMAN and SWAERDECROON
Straits Chinese Steamship Owners in the China-Straits Trade 1890s-1949
(Ho Hong, Seang Line, Koe Guan & Oei Tiong Ham)
Marty & d'Abbadie (1893)
Norwegian Passenger-Carrying ‘China Coasters’ Trading South China/ Southeast Asia 1896-1977
H.M.H. Nemazee (1918)
Sverre Berg, Thoresen & Co. and the long-lived m.v. KURIMARAU
Chip Hwa Shipping & Trading Co. Ltd (1948)
Jebshun Shipping Co. Ltd. 捷順船務有限公司 (1950)
Singapore Harbour's Breakwater, Quarantine, Coal and Oil Hulks
'Blue Funnel Line/Ocean S.S. Co. Ltd/East Indian Ocean S.S. Co. Ltd and other Singapore-based feeder lines' contained in the PDF file at right 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 below shows HEBE built for the Deli feeder line in 1885. The list includes many rare photographs. At the bottom of our 'Overseas' page we have a selected photographs of Blue Funnel ships operating on the mainline servce to the Far East.
The KPM’s Original Thirteen and the Long Afterlives in China and Japan of VAN DIEMEN, SPEELMAN and SWAERDECROON in the PDF file at right tells of the original 13 ships of the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM) which in January 1891 took over the mail contract for the Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia. This study discusses the ships' origin, design, careers and the vessels they operated with. We have particularly focussed on the careers in China and Japan of three of the ships which lived past the age of 50 years. The photo below from the collection of Martin Lindenborn shows SPEELMAN arriving at a river port in the Netherlands East Indies in 1890.
The post in the PDF file at right, 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 below show two of the ships involved. First in a photo from the late Bill Laxon's collection is HONG BEE which operated on the route from 1913 until 1926. Second, 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.
Marty & d'Abbadie- 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 below 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 at right.
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 at right. 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. Show below 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.
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 at right. 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 below is Nemazee’s ALMERIA, probably at Tanjung Priok, Java in 1922/23 while on China Mail charter (WSPL).
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 at right.
Chip Hwa Shipping & Trading Co. Ltd-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 at right. But by 1970 the shipowning side of the business had ended. The two vessels depicted below are converted tanker GLORY shown at Singapore in April 1963 (Dr. George Wilson) and KIAN AUN, also at Singapore, in 1968 (https://www.shipsnostalgia.com/media/kian-aun.131970/).
Jebshun Shipping Company (Ltd) traced its origins to Jebshun & Co. formed in Swatow (Shantou) in 1931 by Teochew/ Chiuchow merchant Lam Choon-cheong (林俊璋) and began as a ship operator with a charter and the formation of Winly Navigation Co. Ltd in 1950. With further charters of Norwegian-flag tonnage and owned vessels, the comany became prominent in the South China-Straits trade including the transport of passengers. From 1959 the company also moved into the booming regional charter market and in the period 1967-70 acquired seven modern freighters. By 1969 most of the fleet was engaged on time charter to the People’s Republic of China, but after incidents of misfortune, the company applied for bankruptcy in December 1971. Show below in a photograph by Robert Gabriel at Singapore ca.1960 is Jebshun passenger ship SHUN SHING, and beneath that showing the colour scheme in a photograph by N. Brown at Hobart in 1964 is the cargo ship SHUN TAI. The PDF file at right authored by Howard Dick contains a short history followed by a detailed fleet list with many photographs.
We have an illustrated essay by Howard entitled "Tracing Singapore Harbour's Breakwater, Quarantine, Coal and Oil Hulks" in the PDF file at right. One of the ships scuttled there was LOUDON, pictured below (marhisdata.nl).
