Palm Line

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, unfortunately this was soon outstripped by the Slave Trade where the English surpassed the combined efforts of all the rest. The Triangular Trade as it became known carried European goods to the Guinea Coast where they were exchanged for human cargo. The ships then sailed for either Peru where the slaves worked in the mines, West Indies for work in the sugar fields or the American Colonies for work in the tobacco plantations and later the cotton fields. During the crossing up to twenty percent of the slaves perished but with profits of up to one thousand percent possible there was no shortage of ships, Captains and crews willing to make the voyages. The last leg of the triangle was the shipment of sugar and tobacco back to Europe where more cloths and trinkets were purchased for the commencement of another triangular voyage, a very profitable enterprise. In the one hundred years to 1789 over two million slaves had been shipped to the British Colonies alone, and in 1790 British ships carried 38, 000 while the combined fleets of the French, Dutch, Danes and Portuguese carried a further 36, 000. The two ports of Liverpool and Bristol profited greatly from the Slave Trade but in 1807 the carriage of slaves in British ships was banned by the British Government, also British Colonies were forbidden to receive them. To their credit the British Government then sought agreements from Nations whose ships still continued in the trade for the Royal Navy to be able to board suspect vessels and commander them, by the 1850's the trade was effectively at an end.

Whilst the Slave Trade prospered 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. Operating on the Ivory Coast was by no means without risk, as well as cannibals seafarers and soldiers alike had to contend with the most fever ridden shoreline in the world after all it didn't earn its nickname of the "White Man's Grave" without merit. 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. Colemere, Delamere, Eskmere, Redesmere, Flaxmere, Rabymere, Oakmere and Linmere comprised the Fleet.


Oakmere. Built in 1910.
Laurence Dunn Collection.

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. The remaining four ships were joined by the twin screw vessel Kulambanga from the companies Pacific plantations.

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, a few months later Lever Brothers merged with the Dutch Margarine Union becoming the Unilever Group. At the time of the merger African & Eastern possessed four ships, Ashantian, Ethiopian, Nigerian and Lafian., Lafian had replaced Woodville a year earlier, Woodville was originally purchased from the Southern Whaling Company and had carried the body of Sir Ernest Shackleton to South Georgia for burial.


Woodville in the Mersey.
Roger Kohn.

With improvement in its fortune and an eye on its main competitor, the Niger Company had purchased a rather old steamship from Cunard called Tyria and renamed her Ars in 1928, and so as previously stated the Fleet now stood at five.


Lafian which replaced Woodville
Laurence Dunn

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.


Kumasian
Laurence Dunn

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.


Guinean
Laurence Dunn

Built in 1936 by Howaldtswerke A.G. Hamburg. She was of 5, 202 G.T. and transferred to Palm Line in 1949 becoming Kano Palm. She was sold out of the Fleet in 1954 and had various owners before arriving at Taiwan for breaking in 1967.

Guinean was the first Company ship to see action when she was part of the Evacuation Force off France in 1940. Guinean carried remnants of the B.E.F. and also civilians amongst whose numbers were children. Captain E.V. Bishop wrote to the Company's agents in Liverpool describing events which took place on the 17th of June when he was embarking troops and civilians for the hazardous voyage across the English Channel.

'You will no doubt be wondering what we have been doing of late but have no doubt surmised that we have been evacuating troops from France, and I take this opportunity of drawing to your notice the splendid behaviour of my ship's company, which has upheld the highest traditions of the Mercantile Marine.'

'In the first place, every Officer throughout the ship gave up his cabin to accommodate Officers and lady refugees. I myself had three ladies in my bedroom and six Senior Officers in my day room. Particularly I wish to mention Mr. Gillies, who was a tower of strength to me, and Mr. Felton and Mr. Elston. All these Officers carried out their duties without the least panic. The Engineers also did their stuff, and an amusing episode was when a Canadian soldier dropped a Mills grenade by accident between the two boilers. The Fourth Engineer recovered it, much to the Chief Engineer's relief. We carried quite a few civilians, ladies and babies, and I am sure they were all very grateful for the accommodation and the few comforts we could offer them. The total amount of troops carried this last trip was somewhere around 3, 600. Of course you can realise the state of the ship at the present moment, half used tins of bully beef, biscuits, papers and equipment fore and aft, in between decks and on deck throughout the ship.'


Troops being evacuated from St Nazaire aboard Guinean
Roger Kohn

On the 1st of July Zarian survived a torpedo attack when in convoy 250 miles off the Scilly Isles, U-26 was sunk by an escort vessel and Zarian was towed to Falmouth for repairs. Lagosian survived a bombing attack when off Peterhead on the 2nd of September but five of her crew were killed. The German built Congoian was the first Company ship to be sunk when she was torpedoed by U-65 off the West Coast of Africa on the 18th of November. Two other Company's losses in 1940 occurred on the 5th of July when Gambian and Takoradian called at Dakar to replenish their bunkers. Both ships were boarded by Officials loyal to the New Vichy regime and detained, however both were released in 1943 and saw service as Empire Tweed and Empire Swale for the Ministry of War Transport, both survived and were handed back to UAC in 1946. In 1941 Kumasian was sunk by torpedo on the 5th of August fired from U-74 when in convoy off the Irish Coast. Lafian followed her on the 24th of September when she was torpedoed by U-107 when in convoy northbound 500 miles off the Azores. The ship's Master, Captain E.L. Phillips M.B.E. wrote the following account of Lafian's last voyage.

'On the fifth or sixth night after our departure from Freetown the fun started. The first ship to be torpedoed was one of the Silver Line, which was hit amidships and dropped astern. On the next night, about the same time, 2230 hours, the enemy struck again and two ships were hit and sunk. On the following night he came again at about the same time, but he only succeeded to strike one on this occasion, the St.Clair, managed by UAC and commanded by Captain Readman. She soon disappeared, in fact they did not have time to lower any boats and had to jump for it. They were later picked up by one of the Escort Vessels, but there were thirteen missing when a roll call was taken. About 0430 hours the same night we were hit amidships as was the John Holt, the Commodore ship, and another ship belonging to Elders. There now remained four vessels out of thirteen which left Freetown, but I did hear that the remaining four reached their destination.'

'When I reached the Bridge after we were hit my Chief Officer, Mr. (later Captain) Croft, asked if he could lower the lifeboats. I could feel that the ship was doomed as she was filling up and taking a list to starboard. I of course agreed and then went forward to the sailors' and firemen's quarters to make sure none had slept through it. I found no-one and returned amidships where all the Officers and crew were assembled all accounted for. We lowered the boats and while the men were filling them an apparition in white flew past. This later turned out to be the 2nd Officer going for his trousers.'

'According to the best traditions and customs I was the last man to leave the ship, but I must add here that if anyone had dawdled he would have been left behind. I always remember landing with some force on top of Mr. Kendal, my Chief Engineer. The strange thing was that Mr. Kendal was sailing in that ship because Mr. Allan, my regular Chief was a superstitious man and refused to sail as it was the ship's thirteenth voyage and we were sailing on the thirteenth of the month. Shortly after the two boats got clear of the Lafian she turned over and slowly sank.'


Lafian
Laurence Dunn

Built in 1937 by Furness S.B. Co Ltd, Haverton Hill with United Africa Co Ltd as managers.

Nigerian sank when off the coast of Trinidad when struck by a torpedo fired from U-508 on the 8th of December 1942. Four crew were killed and an RAF Officer and three Army Officers who were travelling as passengers were taken prisoners aboard the U-boat. On the 28th of the same month Zarian which had survived a previous torpedo attack in 1940 was torpedoed and sunk by U-591 North of the Azores bound for West Africa, four crewmen died. Lagosian was torpedoed and sunk by U-159 on the 28th of April when off the West African coast, seven crewmen lost their lives. The Company suffered its biggest crew loss when Ashantian was sunk by torpedo from U-415 when in the Western Approaches when in convoy outward bound to New York on the 21st of April. Fourteen crewmembers lost their lives including the ship's Master, Captain C. Cartmer-Taylor. The last two ships the Company lost were both sunk in 1944, Matadian by torpedo from U-66 on the 20th of March and finally Dahomian sank on the 1st of April by an unexplained underwater explosion off the coast of South Africa with the loss of two lives.

By 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. UAC had supplemented its diminishing Fleet during the War with Kumasian and Lafian both built by Furness S.B. CO Ltd, Haverton Hill in 1943 and the Swan, Hunter built Congonian.


Congonian

Built in 1942 by Swan, Hunter Wigham & Richardson Ltd, Newcastle. Tonnage 6, 082GT.

A vegetable oil tanker she transferred to Palm Line Ltd in 1949 becoming Opobo Palm. Sold in 1961 to Windward Shipping Co Ltd of Hong Kong and renamed Winwar. She arrived in Hong Kong for breaking on the 22nd June 1963.

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