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.

 

Unilever
www.unilever.com
 
CMA-CGM Group
www.cma-cgm.com
 
Delmas
www.delmas.com

 



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