an introduction
The company had its roots in the African Steam Ship Company established
by Royal Charter in 1852, and the British and African Steam Navigation Company
founded in 1868. The agents of British and African was Elder Dempster and Company, and the
three companies were superseded in August 1932 by Elder Dempster Lines Limited.
Based in Liverpool, Elder Dempster Lines served the trade routes
to West Africa.
It operated three liners (known to all as the mailboats) on a regular scheduled service departing
each fortnight to Ghana and Nigeria, with other ports of call in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
A large number of cargo and express cargo ships sailed
from the UK / Continent to West Africa, and further south beyond the equator,
and also to the USA. Outward cargoes were general and manufactured goods and included cars, locomotives, machinery, textiles, salt, beers and whisky, and on return voyages logs, sawn timber and ply, palm kernels, palm oil, groundnuts, rubber, cocoa, and tin.
Destinations Served click for a larger version |
West Africa Ports click for a larger version |
Elder Dempster ships sailed from a number of UK ports, including
Liverpool, Tilbury, Newcastle, Hull, Glasgow, and Hull. Continental
ports were primarily Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam. En route
ports were Las Palmas, Funchal, and Casablanca, and down The Coast
the buff-coloured funnels of Elder Dempster ships were to be seen at
Dakar, Bathurst (now Banjul), Conakry, Freetown, Monrovia, Cape Palmas, Abidjan,
Takoradi, Tema, Lome, Cotonou, Lagos/Apapa, Burutu, Warri, Sapele, Port Harcourt,
Calabar, Victoria, Tiko, Douala, Bata, Libreville, Port Gentil, Pointe Noire,
Boma, Matadi, Luanda, and Lobito (the latter more than 5,000 nautical miles from Liverpool).
Providing a local presence and support to company ships and their crews was
an effective chain of offices of Elder Dempster Agencies, and other services included
coastal cargo ships, ferries, and tugs of the West African Lighterage
and Transport Company.
The company played a major part in Britain’s war effort, but not without a price: losing 42 ships in the Great War and 26 ships in the War of 1939-1945 plus a further 7 managed on behalf of the British government. Elder Dempster ships also took part in the Falklands War of 1982.
In the 1930s Elder Dempster operated an airline - Elders Colonial Airways - with flights from Freetown to Bathurst and Dakar - and for many years ran a fleet of coastwise cargo ships and river ferries in Nigeria. At the end of the 19th century the company had been instrumental in forming the Bank of British West Africa (renamed the Bank of West Africa in the 1950s, and subsequently acquired by the Standard Bank).
The fleet had expanded during the 1950s and early 1960s, taking in the P. Henderson ships of British and Burmese Steam Navigation Company and acquiring Guinea Gulf Line.
Elder Dempster's peak tonnage was reached in 1965, but the West African trade was not immune from the sweeping changes which affected shipping worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s and the decline of the British merchant fleets.
In January 1965 Ocean Transport and Trading Ltd (formerly Ocean Steamship Company) became sole owner of Elder Dempster Lines Ltd share holding (Elder Dempster Lines becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the group, which included Blue Funnel Line) and in 1984 Ocean Transport and Trading acquired Palm Line, which had been founded by the United Africa Company in 1949.
By the end of 1988 Elder Dempster Lines had moved out of India Buildings, its head office in Liverpool, and the company was operating one ship, foreign-built and with a Blue Funnel rather than traditional Elder Dempster name. In the following year Elder Dempster Lines, together with Palm Line and Guinea Gulf Line, was acquired by the French Delmas-Vieljeux shipping group. In 1991 the Bolloré group (also based in France) acquired Delmas-Vieljeux.
Elder Dempster Agencies operated as the liner shipping agency for the group in the UK until 2000, when it became Delmas UK, and on 8 May 2000 Elder Dempster Lines Ltd was formally wound up (the name having been dormant for many years) and passed into history.
Footnote
In 1990 Ocean Transport and Trading was renamed Ocean Group and in 2000 the company merged with NFC plc (formerly the National Freight Consortium) to form the logistics company Exel plc. In 2005 Exel was acquired by Deutsche Post (trading as DHL Group).
Delmas became part of the French CMA CGM group in 2005. Subsequently CMA CGM unified all its maritime activities to and from Africa under a single brand, and from 2016 the Delmas name was fully integrated into CMA CGM.
all text, ports map, and photo © Mike Ingham
house flags © BBSNCo / GGL / Palm Line
EDL map and distance table © Elder Dempster Lines
Elder Dempster Lines House Flag © Elder Dempster Lines
this page last updated 6 October 2024
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