“?… may we not say in the words of Bacon? — ‘The introduction of new inventions seemeth to be the very chief of all human actions. The benefits of new inventions may extend to all mankind universally, but the good of political achievements can respect but some particular cantons of men; these latter do not endure above a few ages, the former for ever. Inventions make all men happy without either injury or damage to any one single person. Furthermore, new inventions are, as it were, new erections and imitations of God's own works.’”
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References
1.
“The sea”, 70th Anglo-American Conference of Historians programme, Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 4–6 July 2001. There were groups of papers on piracy (including “Piracy and sexuality”), on the health of seamen, on seafaring labour, on mutiny, on music and the sea, on recreation, on the marine environment, on ship-owning, on the decline and fall of British shipbuilding, on port Jews, on politicians and navies, and on governments and the sea.
2.
MorrellJackThackrayArnold, Gentlemen of science: Early years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford, 1981), esp. 505–31.
3.
SmithCrosbieWiseM. Norton, Energy and empire: A biographical study of Lord Kelvin (Cambridge, 1989), esp. 282–347, 649–798. For a broader study of the links between engineering and political economy see NortonM. Wise (with the collaboration of Crosbie Smith), “Work and waste: Political economy and natural philosophy in nineteenth century Britain (I) – (III)”, History of science, xxvii (1989), 263–301; xxviii (1990), 221–61.
4.
WinterAlison, ‘“Compasses all awry’: The iron ship and the ambiguities of cultural authority in Victorian Britain”, Victorian studies, xxxviii (1994), 69–98.
5.
Liverpool Mercury, 29 September 1854.
6.
Ibid., 26 September 1854.
7.
Ibid., 29 September 1854.
8.
The syren and shipping, 18 April 1900, 155. Writing almost a century after OSS's foundation, Le FlemingH.M., Ships of the Blue Funnel Line (Southampton, 1961), 2, affirmed that “none of the Company's ships built to their own specification have been lost through stress of weather”.
9.
HoltGeorgeDiariesSr (with entries by Emma Holt and others), 23 January 1830–6 January 1861, Papers of the Durning and Holt Families, 920 DUR/1/1–2, Liverpool Central Library; [HoltAlfred], Fragmentary autobiography of Alfred Holt (privately printed, 1911); Alfred Holt, Diary, Book A, Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/52, Liverpool Central Library; and “O.S.S. Co. General Books” (3 vols: 1865–82, 1883–97, 1897–1902), Ocean archive, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool. Very little of Philip Henry Holt's personal papers appears to have survived.
10.
HydeF. E. (with the assistance of HarrisJ. R.), Blue Funnel: A history of Alfred Holt and Company of Liverpool from 1865 to 1914 (Liverpool, 1957), esp. 172–81. For a recent and broader study of Liverpool shipping see MilneGraeme J., Trade and traders in mid-Victorian Liverpool: Mercantile business and the making of a world port (Liverpool, 2000).
11.
FalkusMalcolm, The Blue Funnel legend: A history of the Ocean Steam Ship Company, 1865–1973 (Basingstoke, 1990), 92–97. An historiographical contrast, with emphasis on Unitarian contexts, is SmithCrosbieHigginsonIanWolstenholmePhillip, “‘Avoiding equally extravagance and parsimony’: The moral economy of the ocean steamship”, Technology and culture (forthcoming, 2003). This paper examines Liverpool Unitarian ship-owners' attitudes to “money-getting” within a framework of a “moral economy” (used as a precise actors' category). A much looser, analyst's category of “moral economy” is provided in ThompsonE. P., “The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century”, Past and present, no. 50 (1971), 76–136. Theoretical underpinning of a socio-cultural turn in economic and business history is provided by Mark Granovetter, “Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness”, American journal of sociology, xci (1985), 481–510. Victorian cultures of investment are explored in Victorian studies, xlv (2002) (special issue).
12.
HeadrickDaniel, The tools of empire: Technology and European imperialism in the nineteenth century (Oxford, 1981), 204–10. Headrick's chapter on “The emergence of efficient steamships” (pp. 142–8) culminates in an account of the marine compound engine which is beset by inaccuracies. He refers erroneously to the patent of “Charles Rudolph and John Elder” instead of Randolph and Elder; to Alfred Holt's Cleator built in 1862 “specifically for long-distance trade in eastern seas” rather than to the Cleator built in 1854 for the coastal iron ore trade and re-engined with an experimental compound engine in 1864 (below); and to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company “which served the Far East” instead of the West Coast of South America (pp. 147–8). His broader claim that the compound engine “made steamships competitive with sailing ships, not only on government-subsidized mail routes, but for ordinary freight on distant seas as well” (p. 205) is also doubtful, if only because the freight was usually of high value (most notably tea), leaving “ordinary freight” and bulk cargoes such as coal or wool to sailing vessels for many more years.
13.
MunroForbes, Maritime enterprise and empire: Sir William Mackinnon and his business network 1823–1893 (Woodbridge, 2003), esp. 8, 498 (on Headrick); 485–8 (on steamship technology).
14.
ShapinSteven, A social history of truth (Chicago and London, 1994), 16–22. See esp. Granovetter, “Economic action” (ref. 11) for a discussion of “trust” in economic activities.
15.
Shapin, op. cit., 7–8.
16.
Ibid., 6–7.
17.
Ibid., 14–15.
18.
Ibid., 245–7.
19.
HoltGeorge (edited by his daughter Anne), A brief memoir of George Holt, esquire of Liverpool (privately printed 1861; privately reprinted Cambridge, 1995), 1–23, giving an autobiographical account of his early life. Hyde, Blue Funnel (ref. 10), 1–6 is largely drawn from George Holt's Memoir.
20.
Hyde, Blue Funnel (ref. 10), 6–8.
21.
HoltGeorge, Diary, 23 January 1830–5 October 1844 (ref. 9), c. 24 December 1834.
22.
StewartRandall (ed.), The English notebooks by Nathaniel Hawthorne (New York, 1962), 50 (13 March 1854).
23.
Alfred to HoltAnne, [c. 1853], Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2, Liverpool Central Library.
24.
HoltAnne, Walking together: A study in Liverpool nonconformity 1688–1938 (London, 1938), 187 (on Thom's Ulster education); McBrideI. R., Scripture politics: Ulster Presbyterians and Irish Radicalism in the late eighteeth century (Oxford, 1998), esp. 41–66 (on the “New Light” Presbyterians and their opposition to Calvinist doctrines); SmithWise, Energy and empire (ref. 3), 9–18 (on the Belfast Institution and its political contexts); and WebbR. K., “John Hamilton Thom: Intellect and conscience in Liverpool”, in PhillipsP. T. (ed.), The view from the pulpit: Victorian ministers and society (Toronto, 1978), 211–43. Anne Holt, historian of Liverpool Unitarianism, was a granddaughter of Alfred's brother Robert. Her father, Richard Durning Holt, headed OSS from the early 1900s until his death in 1941. For a contextual treatment of Unitarianism, economy and Liverpool steamships, see SmithHigginsonWolstenholme, “Moral economy” (ref. 11).
25.
ThomJ. H., Sermons and occasional services, selected from the papers of the late Rev. John Hincks, with a memoir of the author, by John H. Thom (London, 1832), 467.
26.
On early nineteenth-century British evangelicals and their biblical values (in contrast to utilitarians and other materialists) see HiltonBoyd, The age of atonement: The influence of evangelicalism on social and economic thought, 1785–1865 (Oxford, 1991), 3–35, esp. p. 10 (on ‘extreme’ and ‘moderate’ evangelicals).
27.
HoltGeorge, Diary, 11 November 1844–31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 23 November 1851, 23 March 1845.
28.
HoltAnne, Walking together (ref. 24), 215 (“Christ the great example”), and ThomJohn H., The doctrine of waste: A discourse delivered in Prince's Street Chapel, Cork, 8th May 1836 (Cork, 1836). This pamphlet and its Unitarian context are examined more fully in SmithHigginsonWolstenholme, “Moral economy” (ref. 11).
29.
HoltGeorge, Diary, 23 January 1830 – 5 October 1844 (ref. 9), 26 August 1834, and [Alfred Holt], Autobiography (ref. 9), 6–7.
30.
HoltGeorge, Diary, 23 January 1830–5 October 1844 (ref. 9), 20 January 1842.
31.
Ibid., 13. The ship-owning Rathbones and Holts often held shares in the same vessels. One of the older Jevons brothers, Thomas, later worked for Rathbones while William Stanley, writing from Liverpool's Queens College, claimed that their father was responsible for the first iron ship (Mechanics magazine, xiii (1865), 369). Holts and Jevonses took a strong interest in the Liverpool Institute (the former Mechanics Institute). See BlackR. CollisonKonekampRosamund (eds), Papers and correspondence of William Stanley Jevons (7 vols, London, 1972–81).
32.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 13. Holt named the future Cardinal Manning as one of the pernicious influences on the young Green.
33.
HoltGeorge, Diary, 23 January 1830–5 October 1844 (ref. 9), 15 April 1843.
34.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 13.
35.
PoleWilliam (ed.), The life of Sir William Fairbairn, Bart. (London, 1877), 111–17, 190 (“his manufactory … formed an excellent school for mechanical engineering”), 311–32. On ‘gifts’ see esp. DouglasMary, “Foreword: No free gifts”, in MaussMarcel, The gift (London, 1990), pp. vii–xviii.
36.
Pole, Fairbairn (ref. 35), 153–5, 335–42; BanburyPhilip, Shipbuilders of the Thames and Medway (Newton Abbot, 1971), 171–4; and SmithWise, Energy and empire (ref. 3), 288–92. As Banbury notes, the Millwall yard ultimately formed part of the site for construction of the Great Eastern.
37.
See Pole (ed.), Fairbairn (ref. 35), 456–9 (Unitarianism), 159–62 (strength of iron), 179–88 (iron for warehouse construction), 287–308 (experiments with Hopkins and Joule).
38.
HoltGeorge, Diary, 11 November 1844–31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 4 January 1845.
39.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 15.
40.
Ibid., 15–16.
41.
George Holt to [?] Smith, 12 November [c. 1843–44], Miscellaneous letters and papers, Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/41–5, Liverpool Central Library.
42.
HoltGeorge, Diary, 11 November 1844–31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 1 July 1846.
43.
HoltAlfred, Diary (ref. 9), 28 March 1869. Tubular boilers enabled the heat of the furnace to produce steam from water contained in a honeycomb of tubes rather than from water in a simple boiler. Their comparative efficiency was widely attributed to the greatly increased heating surface. See also HowseDerek, Greenwich time and the discovery of the longitude (Oxford, 1980), 87–88 (Booth and GMT); Pole (ed.), Fairbairn (ref. 35), 389 (tubular boilers); and BoothHenry, Henry Booth: Inventor – partner in the Rocket and the father of railway management (Ilfracombe. 1980) (biography).
44.
HoltAnne, Walking together (ref. 24), 188.
45.
The laws, and a report of the first two years' proceedings of the Polytechnic Society, Liverpool (Liverpool, 1841), 1, 5–6, 11–13. Grantham's “Presidential Address” (1843) was “Steam navigation”, Transactions of the Liverpool Polytechnic Society, i (1843–44), 60–64 with particular emphasis on screw propellers. See also GranthamJohn, “On the progress and success of the screw, applied as an auxiliary in the propulsion of vessels”, Transactions of the Liverpool Polytechnic Society, iii (1847–48), 80–82.
46.
BoothHenry, An account of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (Liverpool, 1830), 15.
47.
Ibid., 34–35.
48.
Ibid., 50.
49.
Ibid., 51.
50.
Ibid., 57.
51.
Ibid., 85–88.
52.
Ibid., 88–91.
53.
Ibid., 93–94. On the Liverpool and Manchester Railway see also CarlsonRobert E., The Liverpool & Manchester Railway project 1821–1831 (Newton Abbot, 1969); ThomasR. H. G., The Liverpool & Manchester Railway (London, 1980); FerneyhoughFrank, Liverpool & Manchester Railway 1830–1980 (London, 1980); and PerkinHarold, The age of the railway (Newton Abbot, 1971), 77–95.
54.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 16.
55.
Ibid., 17–18.
56.
HoltGeorge, Diary 11 November 1844–31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 5 January 1850. On Hartley, see JarvisAdrian, The Liverpool dock engineers (Stroud, 1996).
57.
HoltGeorge, Diary 11 November 1844–31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 18 June 1849.
58.
Ibid., 12 August 1849. See esp. HillsRichard L., Power from steam: A history of the stationary steam engine (Cambridge, 1989), esp. 106–9, 118–19, 151–8 (on Woolf's “compound” engine and its superior performance in Cornwall).
59.
HoltGeorge, Diary 11 November 1844 – 31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 27 February and 6 March 1853.
60.
Ibid., 21 April 1849; [HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 20–21. He added that he was “allowed to use larger tools at the Railway, and I so availed of my opportunities that there was very little in the way of ordinary turning and fitting that I could not do, or that, at any rate, I did not know how it was done”.
61.
BoothHenry, “On the prospects of steam navigation, &c”, Transactions of the Liverpool Polytechnic Society, ii (1844–46), 24–31, pp. 25–26.
62.
Ibid., 27.
63.
Ibid., 27.
64.
Ibid., 27–28. British Association investigations of hull-designs (especially those of John Scott Russell) are examined in Morrell and Thackray, Gentlemen of science (ref. 2), 505–8.
65.
Booth, “Steam navigation” (ref. 61), 30.
66.
Ibid., 30–31.
67.
JevonsW. S., The coal question (2nd edn, London, 1866), 374 (epigraph above). See also SmithHigginsonWolstenholme, “Moral economy” (ref. 11). Crosbie Smith, The science of energy: A cultural history of energy physics in Victorian Britain (Chicago and London, 1998), 110, 247–55, 310–13, explains the difference between “waste to man” and “waste in nature” in the context of Victorian energy physics. A waterfall, for instance, involves waste of work potentially useful to man unless harnessed by a waterwheel, but such “waste to man” does not necessarily imply that God's creation is inherently wasteful.
68.
HoltGeorge, Diary 11 November 1844 – 31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 23 February and 9 March 1851, and HeatonP. M., Lamport & Holt (Newport, 1986), 20–23 (shareholdings in the three Moss steamers). BoyceG. H., Information, mediation and institutional development: The rise of large-scale enterprise in British shipping, 1870–1919 (Manchester, 1995), regards such family-led networks in specific ports such as Liverpool as typical of the era. See also Munro, Maritime enterprise (ref. 13), 491.
69.
HoltGeorge, Diary 11 November 1844–31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 3 August 1851, and [HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 21–23.
70.
HoltGeorge, Diary 11 November 1844 – 31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 11 January and 25 April 1852, and LindsayW. S., History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (4 vols, London, 1874–76), iv, 305–10 (loss of the Amazon).
71.
HoltGeorge, Diary 11 November 1844–31 December 1854 (ref.9), 10 October and 21 November 1852, 20 February 1853; Lindsay, Merchant shipping (ref. 70), iv, 428–30 (auxiliary steamers), and 467–9 (Yangste steamers); [HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 23, 27; and [HoltAlfred], Drawings of “Auxiliary engines for the ‘W. S. Lindsay’”, Ocean archive, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool. It was Lindsay's Merchant shipping that made the Holts' venture into an historical “fact” (below).
72.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 28.
73.
Alfred Holt, Engineering drawing of machinery for Alpha (note added 17 June 1901), Ocean archive, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool.
74.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 23–26.
75.
Quoted in Alfred Holt's obituary notice, Liverpool Post & Mercury, 29 November 1911, and George Holt, Diary 11 November 1844 – 31 December 1854 (ref. 9), 27 May 1853. The Alpha's misfortunes were not quite over. “… after making two excellent voyages”, he told his mother on 23 June 1854, “[she] put into the Mersey yesterday with her boiler as bad as ever. She is not qualified for a steamer. It is a pity she was ever altered from a sailing vessel in which capacity she rather distinguished herself” (920 HOL/2/41–5, Liverpool Central Library).
76.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 28–29; HoltAlfred, “Specification of an iron screw steamer for the coasting trade”, Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/10, Liverpool Central Library.
77.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 29–30.
78.
HoltAlfred, Notes on the Saladin, Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/54, Liverpool Central Library.
79.
Alfred to HoltEmma, c. 1856, Miscellaneous letters and papers, Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/41–5, Liverpool Central Library; [HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 30–32.
80.
Ibid., 32–33, our italics.
81.
Ibid., 33–34. See also Lindsay, Merchant shipping (ref. 70), iv, 331–2.
82.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 35–37. Alfred estimated that in total he had spent some three years of his life at sea “nearly all … in either new or peculiar ships” (p. 37).
83.
KiddAlexander, “Jottings from a sailor's life” (typescript), Ocean archive, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool, p. 22. Captain Kidd was later washed overboard and drowned while in command of OSS's Ajax off the Bay of Biscay in September 1883. Alfred's remarks concerning the ingress of water were recorded in his Diary (ref. 9), 15 January 1866, a few months before taking delivery of the first of his China steamers. The London sinking in the Bay of Biscay received wide public attention as no women or children survived from a modern “vessel belonging to one of the very best houses among our great shipowners”. See Mechanics magazine, xv (1866), 34.
84.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 42–43; HoltAnne, Extracts from Miss Anne Holt's Diary relating to Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/40, Liverpool Central Library, 4 and 18 July, 1863. From these extracts it is apparent that Alfred regarded the Lamport & Holt venture as a “second string to his bow” on account of competition on the West Indies routes. See also Heaton, Lamport & Holt (ref. 68), 24–30, 108–11.
85.
Ibid., 103–42 (Lamport & Holt fleet list). The nomenclature gradually increased in cultural breadth to include natural philosophers, artists, musicians and writers.
86.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 44–45; HoltAnne, Extracts (ref. 84), 20 December 1863; and Heaton, Lamport & Holt (ref. 68), 109.
RankineW. J. M., A memoir of John Elder (Edinburgh and London, 1871), 3–7, 37–38; BonsorN. R. P., North Atlantic seaway (5 vols, Newton Abbot and Jersey, 1975–79), i, 276–7; The Albion, 27 March 1854; and North British Daily Mail, 26 December 1854.
90.
Rankine, John Elder (ref. 89), 38–39.
91.
Ibid., 40–47. The mechanics magazine, xv (1866), 1, reported that the Constance had arrived in Madeira first, but accused the Admiralty of tardiness in releasing the results of the trial.
92.
The Times, 30 September 1854. See, especially as a key part of a significant literature on “technological failure”, MarsdenBen, “Blowing hot and cold: Reports and retorts on the status of the air-engine as success or failure, 1830–1855”, History of science, xxxvi (1998), 373–420, esp. 395–400 (Rankine-Napier air-engine), 384–90 (Ericsson). See also MarsdenBen, “Engineering science in Glasgow: W. J. M. Rankine and the motive power of air”, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kent at Canterbury, 1992, esp. pp. 141–87; idem, “Engineering science in Glasgow: Economy, efficiency and measurement as prime movers in the differentiation of an academic discipline”, The British journal for the history of science, xxv (1992), 319–46; and Bonsor, North Atlantic seaway (ref. 89), i, 334–5 (Ericsson). The full version of Rankine's BAAS paper was published as RankineW. J. M., “On the means of realizing the advantages of the air-engine”, Edinburgh new philosophical journal, i (1855), 1–32, esp. pp. 19–20. For a range of studies of technological failure see Social studies of science, xxii (1992) (special issue).
93.
JouleJ. P. to ThomsonWilliam, January 1858, J248, Kelvin correspondence, Cambridge University Library. From the time of her protracted and costly sideways launch, the Great Eastern never really won the trust of the requisite publics. On her maiden voyage to New York, for instance, she carried 35 passengers (and 418 crew). See Bonsor, North Atlantic seaway (ref. 89), ii, 579–87 (synopsis of her career), and Lindsay, Merchant shipping (ref. 70), iv, 486–543 (post-mortem on the career of the “Great Ship”).
94.
For example, TyndallJohn, “On force”, Philosophical magazine, xxiv (1862), 57–66, and Smith, Science of energy (ref. 67), 180. Tyndall's paper originated as a lecture in a series of Friday Evening Discourses at the Royal Institution coinciding with the 1862 London International Exhibition. On Rankine's Manual see ibid., 150–1.
Ibid., pp. x–xi, and Alfred Holt, Diary (ref. 9), 16–18 February 1866.
97.
Compare Smith (ref. 67), 15–30, 307–14 for a parallel Scottish “liberal Presbyterian” context. See also Wise, op. cit. (ref. 3).
98.
HoltAlfred, Circular regarding Cleator's new engine, Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/10, Liverpool Central Library.
99.
Ibid.
100.
Ibid. See SmithHigginsonWolstenholme, “Moral economy” (ref. 24).
101.
HoltAlfred, Circular (ref. 98).
102.
Ibid.
103.
See Hyde, Blue Funnel (ref. 10), 173, and Le Fleming, Ships (ref. 8), 8, for accounts of the early Holt compound engine. See MarshallF. C., “On the progress and development of the marine engine”, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1872, 449–509, esp. 453, 463–5, for the later design. On Leslie's shipbuilding and its relation to Hawthorns' steam engine building, see ClarkeJ. F., Power on land and sea: 160 years of industrial enterprise on Tyneside (Newcastle, [1979]).
104.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 46–48.
105.
[HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 46–48.
106.
HoltAlfred, Circular letter dated 16 January 1866, Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2, Liverpool Central Library.
107.
Ibid., our italics.
108.
“General Book” (ref. 9), 1.
109.
HoltAlfred, Diary (ref. 9), 24–31 March 1866.
110.
Ibid., 24–31 March 1866.
111.
Ibid., 19 April 1866.
112.
Alfred [and Philip Henry Holt] to Captain Isaac Middleton, 14 April 1866, transcript, Papers of Julian Holt, 920 HOL (Box 10), Liverpool Central Library. Original in Papers of Alfred Holt, 920 HOL/2/24, Liverpool Central Library.
113.
HoltAlfred, Diary (ref. 9), 24 May, 30 June, 14 July, 29 August, 5 and 25 September 1866. A table of earnings per voyage (freight and passage money out and home) at the back of the Diary shows the Ajax taking £5,491 on her first voyage; Achilles £8,943; Agamemnon £10,637 on her second; Ajax £11,714; Achilles £8,042; and Ajax £12,584 on her third.
114.
Ibid., 24 October 1866. [HoltAlfred], Autobiography (ref. 9), 48, quoting Julius Caesar, act 4: Scene 3, recorded with hindsight (1879) how the Agamemnon, Ajax, and Achilles “were the great venture of our lives and marvellous successes they proved. They started the Ocean Steamship Company and the China trade which have been for us ‘the tide in the affairs of men — Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune’”.
115.
Lindsay, Merchant shipping (ref. 70), iv, 434–7. Taking their cue from OSS, most of the large mail lines went compound in the early 1870s, including Cunard (1870). New ocean lines, such as the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, otherwise the White Star Line, deployed compound engines from the beginning (1871).
116.
Kidd, “Jottings” (ref. 83), 21–30.
117.
HoltAlfred, Diary (refs 9 and 113); Le Fleming, Blue Funnel (ref. 8), 38–55 (fleet list); John Swire & Sons to Clifton Carter & Co., 11 October 1888, Swire Papers, JSS 1/9, SOAS (“Ocean Steam Ship Co has been in existence 22 years [and] has declared annual dividends averaging nearly 15% per annum for the whole time”); and “General Book” (ref. 9), i, 337–8 (example of OSS's terminology of “main line(s)”).
118.
HoltAlfred, “Review of the progress of steam shipping during the last quarter of a century [and discussion]”, Minutes of the proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, li (1877–78), 2–135, pp. 70–71.
