Palm
Line (United Africa Company)
(Est. 1929) |
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The
first Europeans to set foot in West Africa were Portuguese when
attempting to
find new routes to India and beyond. They were followed by the Dutch,
Spanish,
French and English whose initial quest was trade in ivory and gold.
However
this was soon overwhelmed by the Slave Trade. Meanwhile
other British Companies operated on the coast in the less onerous trade
of gold
and ivory. Richard and William King Ltd and F & A Swanzy had been
operating
since the late seventeenth century and by the mid nineteenth had been
joined by
Thomas Harrisons & Co, W.B. MacIver of Glasgow and Hatton &
Cookson of
Liverpool and Elder Dempsters. By
the end of the nineteenth century cargo's outward bound from the UK
would
contain guns and gunpowder, hardware, bales of Lancashire cloth,
clothing of
all types, boots and salt. Homeward bound the cargos were of course
ivory and
gold but were supplemented with palm oil, ebony, dye and rubber, most
of the
exchange of goods was done by barter with very little cash changing
hands. By
1910 the price of palm oil made from the pericarp of the fruit and palm
kernel
oil made by crushing the nuts had risen by thirty percent, both oils
were used
in the manufacture of soap, margarine and candles. It was in this year
that the
most powerful man in the soap industry a Bolton grocer by the name of
William
Lever first became interested in West Africa. In
an attempt to gain some independence from his suppliers he first
acquired W.B.
MacIver of Liverpool and then two years later Peter Ratcliffe and
Company and
The Cavalla River Company all traders in oil in the region. In 1911 he
also
formed the Societé Anonyme des Huileries du Congo Belge and bought
great tracts
of land in the Belgian Congo and developed them as plantations also
building a
milling company for the extraction of oil. His consolidation was
complete when
he purchased H. Watson & Company a Manchester firm of shipowners
who
operated a Fleet of seven modern ships suitable for the transport of
palm oil
in 1916, a year later an eighth ship was completed. The Company was
renamed the
Bromport Steamship Company Limited derived from Bromborough Port
situated on
the Wirral, Cheshire and his factory was situated at Port Sunlight. Lever's
losses during the First World War accounted for half of the Fleet.
Delamere was
lost by a torpedo attack when 110 miles west of the Fastnet with a loss
of ten
lives on the 30th of April 1917. Eskmere was sunk by torpedo on the
13th of
October 1917 when off Holyhead, twenty of her crew died including the
Captain.
When off St. Catherine's Point, Isle of Wight Redesmere was torpedoed
and sunk
on the 28th of October 1917 with a loss of nineteen lives. The final
Company
loss was on the 22nd of December 1917 when Colemere was torpedoed 25
miles west
of the Smalls, she sank taking four crew members with her, this sinking
brought
the total to fifty three crewmembers lost. In
February of 1920 Lever Brothers purchased the Niger Company to further
consolidate its position on the West African Coast. This Company not
only
traded in Nigeria it apparently ran the country much along the same
lines as
the East India Company did in India. Sadly for Lever Brothers besides
having
lost all its political standing the Niger Company also misrepresented
its
financial base, this coincided with a drop in the price of palm oil
from £115 a
ton to £55. Just after the war Elder Dempster, Holland West Africa and
Woermann's had formed the West African Line Conference and offered
regular
customer preferential rates, in order to cut its losses Lever Brothers
sold its
Bromport Fleet to Royal Mail and became patrons of the Conference. William
Lever died in 1925 leaving the Company in an extremely vulnerable
situation but
within a few years the fortunes of the loss making Niger Company had
reversed
even after a protracted struggle with its rival the African &
Eastern Trade
Corporation. In 1929 the two Companies merged renaming itself the
United
African Company (Palm Line), a few months later Lever Brothers merged
with the
Dutch Margarine Union becoming the Unilever Group. United Africa Co.
became a
subsidiary of the Unilever Group. UAC
purchased seven further ships between 1930 and 1934, of varying ages
the oldest
being Mendian built by Bartram and Sons of Sunderland in 1903, the
others were
Zarian, Kumasian, Lagosian, Congonian, Gambian and Dohomian, the ships
were all
named after ports or countries which were served by the Company and the
practice was to continue for the rest of the Company's future. As
the depression came to an end exports from West Africa increased with
the
levels of groundnut, palm and kernel oils increasing at a steady rate
also
exports of cocoa and diamonds had increased from the Gold Coast.
Bearing all
this in mind the United Africa Company decided to increase the size of
its
Fleet but this time with new tonnage. One of the major problems faced
by the
Company at the time was that Lever Brothers had considerable sums of
money
locked away in Germany which it was unable to transfer due to
legislation. A
compromise was reached whereby the UAC could have ships built in German
yards,
all the more amazing considering the amount of shipping being built for
Germany's war effort a few years hence. As
new ships came into service UAC disposed of its veterans so that by
1939 the
Company had the most modern Fleet on the West African Coast if not the
world in
comparable size. Sixteen ships in all of which only two were built pre
1930,
the rest having been completed between 1935 to 1938. When war was
declared and
the Government requisitioned British Merchant ships the entire Fleet of
UAC
came under Government control, irony being that half of them had been
built in
German yards. y War's end UAC had lost nine ships, of the remaining
seven, five
had suffered damage of one kind or another and forty six lives had been
lost. In
1960 United Africa Company (Palm Line)'s trade with West Africa
continued to
improve though its percentage cargo carried had fallen due to increased
competition, however the tonnage carried was twice that of 1950. During
this
year the boardroom minutes declared that if trade continued to expand
at the
same pace then efforts would have to be made to increase the size of
the fleet.
This decision was made even in the knowledge that the company was
running in
direct competition against two heavily subsidised state concerns,
Ghana's Black
Star Line and the Nigerian National Line. Due
to political unrest in West Africa Palm Line ceased to build ships for
a
further ten years. Opobo Palm was sold in 1961 for further trading to
the
Windward Shipping Company of Hong Kong and renamed Winwar. The early
Sixties
saw a marked decline in the cargoes carried South due to a market
decline in
the prices paid for Ghana's and Nigeria's exports. By
1962 Palm Line was operating the most modern fleet on the West African
coast
and served about forty ports running from Morocco to Angola, some five
thousand
miles. But it was in this year that the problems faced by not only Palm
Line
but the other British Conference members also began to escalate. With
Nigeria
and Ghana's economic problems mounting and a certain amount of self
reliance
coupled with its dependence on their own State fleets Palm Line found
itself
having to reduce the size of its fleet. During
1966 Palm Line disposed of another three ships, Lokoja Palm, Niger Palm
and
Sapele Palm, 1967 saw the disposal of a further two, Burutu Palm and
the tanker
Makeni Palm, this left the company with just one tanker. This tankers
days were
numbered however and Makurdi Palm was sold on for further trading to
Peruvian
interests in 1969. She was replaced by Matadi Palm the following year. As
the percentage of trade carried by Palm Line decreased so accordingly
it
reduced the size of its fleet and in 1972 a further four ships were
sold on for
further trading, they were, Africa Palm, Akassa Palm, Badgary Palm and
Bamenda
Palm, this action reduced its fleet down to twelve ships, fifty percent
of its
1962 strength. With
the advent of containerisation the company decided to charter in a
Norwegian
ship, Joruna in 1974 and renamed her Africa Palm, as this action met
with some
success the company decided to rid itself of more of its outdated
fleet,
consequently Andoni Palm was sold on for further trading to Greek
owners and
was replaced by a German chartered ship, Hasselburg. For the duration
of its
charter she was called Apapa Palm but to the company's discredit she
not only
flew the German flag but was manned by Germans. The ship was replaced
by
another from the same company in 1977, this was the 1973 built
Schauenburg
whose name was changed to Apapa Palm. In
1977 also the company disposed of Elmina Palm to Panamanian owners and
the
following year sold a further three, Enugu Palm, Katsina Palm and
Ibadan Palm,
all for further trading. The company took delivery of two new
Multi-purpose
ships in 1979, the first was the North Korean built Bamenda Palm, the
second
was the British built Badagry Palm. With
the introduction of the two new ships Palm Line reduced the size of its
fleet
yet again when four of its older and outdated ships were sold on for
further
trading, they were Kano, Lobito, Ilorin and Ilesha Palm's. The
company's share
of trade continued to fall and at this juncture its fleet stood at just
seven
ships. In 1982 the company took delivery of two new Multi-purpose
vessels,
Lagos Palm and Lokoja Palm and at the same time disposed of two more of
its
older ships, Lagos Palm (2) and Ikeja Palm. Trade continued to decline
and by
1984 the fleet was reduced yet again and four more ships left the West
African
trade, Africa Palm was sold and Bamenda, Lagos and Lokoja Palm's were
chartered
to Lloyd Brasileiro of Rio de Janeiro. In
1985 the United Africa Co. Ltd and Unilever decided that running a
shipping
line served no useful purpose especially as it continued to lose money
compounded by the fact that it would be cost effective to use other
carriers at
greatly reduced expense. Consequently in 1985 Palm Line Ltd and its
Conference
rights were sold to Ocean Transport and Trading PLC of Liverpool which
also
operated Elder Dempster and Guinea Gulf Line, UAC retained the
remaining ships,
also in this year the company sold Apapa Palm to Venezuelan owners. The
final
year of operations for UAC came in 1986 when the remaining five ships
were all
sold on. In
1989 Elder Dempster Lines, together with Palm Line and Guinea Gulf
Line, was
acquired by the French Delmas-Vieljeux group and passed into history.
Elder
Dempster Agencies operated as the liner shipping agency for the group
in the UK
until 2000, when it became Delmas UK. However in September 2005 the
Bollore
Group sold its shipping activities (including Delmas UK) to the French
shipping
giant CMA-CGM Group (descendent of CGT French Line). Thus
Palm Line became another of the fine British shipping companies to
disappear
due to mergers and consolidation in the shipping industry and
globalisation. It
is truly the end of a glorious era. www.unilever.com CMA-CGM Group www.cma-cgm.com Delmas www.delmas.com
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