The China Navigation Co.

The China Navigation Co.

The China Navigation Company Limited is a merchant shipping company based in Hong Kong in China. It was founded by John Swire to offer paddle-steamer services on the Yangtze. [1] By the early 1870s John Samuel Swire was convinced that there was an opening for increased steam shipping on the Yangtze River and as he was unable to interest other shipping companies, such as Holt's in undertaking this expansion he decided to establish a new company for this. [2] The China Navigation Company was formed in London in 1872 with a capital of £360,000 chiefly put up by JSS and W H Swire with Holt's, Rathbones, Y H Ismay, R N Dale, John Scott, T Barlow and Mssrs. Imrie and Harrison supplying additional money. JS&S initially ordered three ships to be built for the Lower Yangtze trade and in 1873 purchased the Union Steam Navigation Company giving CNCo two ships and the leases on property in Shanghai and at other river ports. By the mid-1870s CNCo interests had spread to the Canton River trade and by the late 1870s to the Shanghai to Ningpo and Shanghai to Tientsin routes, despite periods of intense competition and rates wars as well as pool agreements with the other shipping companies on these routes. In 1883 the CBO, which had been formed to handle local coastal trade was fused with the CNCo and in the 1880s and 1890s the CNCo expanded its fleet and the ports of call so that by 1894 it consisted of twenty-nine ships calling at ports along the Yangtze, down the South China coast, in the Philippines, S E Asia, Australia, Japan, Russia and the North China coast. Despite problems in Far Eastern trade and affairs during the Twentieth Century, including increased nationalist sentiment and anti-foreign campaigns, boycotts, piracy, staff and salary discontent, and disrupted trade routes due to China's internal civil disturbances, the CNCo fleet continued to operate up to the Second World War and in 1940 was requisitioned by the British Government for the duration of the conflict. In the autumn of 1945 CNCo returned to Hong Kong and Shanghai and gradually requisitioned shipping and property seized by the Japanese was restored and normal working resumed. [3]

Butterfield and Swire (the Far Eastern trading company of JS&S) were appointed from the formation of CNCo as Eastern Managers, all correspondence with JS&S, the London Managers being conducted by the offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai. While Shanghai was responsible for the CNCo business on the Yangtze River and the North China Coast (from Ningpo north), Hong Kong handled the south coast and Canton trade and all the South East Asian, Australian and Philippines routes. In many ports the B&S agent acted for CNCo although in some places a separate CNCo office might be established and in the Philippines, Australia and S E Asia, where there were no B&S offices, independent agents were employed.

Today, CNCo is the deep-sea shipping arm of John Swire & Sons Ltd. CNCo’s managed liner services serve over 130 ports worldwide, employing a mix of specialist owned and chartered vessels carrying container, bulk, break-bulk and project cargoes.


Contents

Current fleet

  • Pacific Harmony[4]
  • Pacific Horizon[4]
  • Highland Chief[4]
  • Kokopo Chief[4]
  • Papuan Chief[4]
  • Pacific Discoverer[4]
  • Pacific Explorer[4]
  • Pacific Mariner[4]
  • Pacific Voyager[4]
  • Tasman Mariner[4]
  • Tasman Endeavour[4]
  • Tasman Commander[4]
  • Tasman Provider[4]
  • Pacific Java[4]
  • Pacific Flores[4]
  • Pacific Celebes[4]
  • Pacific Makassar[4]
  • Erawan[4]

Notable former vessels

  • M.V. Erradale
  • M.V. Soochow (AKA Maersk Asia Decimo)
  • M.V. Eredine (sold)

Notes

  1. ^ The archives of John Swire & Sons Ltd (including the papers of the China Navigation Company Ltd) are held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, http://www.soas.ac.uk/library/archives/
  2. ^ Hyde, F., Blue Funnel. A History of Alfred Holt & Co. of Liverpool, 1865-1914 , (Liverpool University Press, 1956)
  3. ^ Marriner, S. & Hyde, F., 'The Senior' John Samuel Swire 1825- 1898 , (Liverpool University Press, 1967)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r "The China Navigation Company Fleet". http://www.cnco.com.hk/fleet/fleet. Retrieved 12 May 2011. 

External links

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