Riassunto:
This is a fascinating story of British family ship-owning - the owners, the seafarers, the ships and their businesses. It starts in 1875 when Thomas Barraclough of West Hartlepool entered into partnership with the Webster family who owned the West Hartlepool Steam Navigation Company. When the line was sold he formed the partnership of Webster and Barraclough to own and operate tramp ships until the middle of the First World War. The story continues with the history of Dene Shipping which was started in 1929 by the sons of West Hartlepool ship-owners and was latterly controlled by two of Thomas's sons, Henry and Willie Barraclough. In the 1950s Dene took over Silver Line which the author traces from its origins in 1908 as the ship-owning empire of the Thompson family of Sunderland shipbuilders and their American partners, through Barraclough family control, to its ultimate absorption into the Vlasov Group in 1974. He details the war years that saw the devastation by U-boats of both Dene and Silver line's fleets and the history of the Seabridge Shipping consortium, the last occasion on which British flag ships carried a significant tonnage of the world's bulk cargoes. The history gives a graphic account of ship-owning in the 1960s and 1970s and is illustrated with over 150 photographs of owners, ships, masters, chief engineers and employees as well as ships' plans and a liberal sprinkling of sea-faring anecdotes. The appendix lists the details of 165 ships either owned or managed by the companies involved.
Recensione:
The British family shipping companies are so few and far between that they have become an endangered species. But they were once numerous, and indeed, running shipping companies was what families once did. They were part of an extraordinary integrated British maritime industry, with the family shipping company often owning shares in the shipyards that built their ships, and the shippers whose cargoes they carried and who strongly identified with a port or river. Looking for the Silver Lining A British Family s Shipowning Century: 1875-1975, has just been published and in this delightful book, Martin Barraclough tells the very personal story of Dene Shipping and Silver Line, which had emerged from the West Hartlepool Steam Navigation Company and into which his grandfather Thomas Barraclough had begun a partnership in 1875. In his foreword to this book, Sir Adrian Swire writes of the distinct breed of the self-made Victorian shipowner, paternalistic and nepotistic by modern standards, but hands-on executives, dedicated to their businesses, taking the long view in an intensely cyclical industry. We miss these people today. Here, in the 1870s, we have the Hartlepools in their industrial heyday, with a huge new dock system, ambitions to wipe the floor with every other east coast port, and flourishing shipyards and engine works. To see West Hartlepool today, it is difficult to comprehend this vast burst of industrial energy and the people in this busy port who harnessed coal and steel and set out to conquer the maritime world. So in many ways, this is a sad book, in that we know the end before we start the first page, although it is hugely interesting for the intense detail that the author has managed to garner in which he can portray this 100-year journey of a shipping enterprise. Family companies also have a personality, which is not always found in corporate entities, with long and warm relationships and loyalties between the owners and those who work for them. Dene and Silver Line clearly were among the best in this respect, the book garnished with numerous anecdotes and quotations from masters and cadets, managers and engineers alike. It is also worth noting that the century of these family affairs took in two world wars and the Great Depression, so they were survivors of all manner of vicissitudes. They managed to cope with freight rate cycles of alarming steepness and unpredictability, and great technical changes that saw coal give way to oil, steam to diesel and the growing specialisation of the merchant fleet after the Second World War. They operated with liners and tramps, general cargo and bulk, chemical tankers and car carriers as part of the Seabridge Consortium, with a fleet of the world s largest combination carriers. So Martin Barraclough s story is also one of a fast changing shipping world, in which Clarkson, Shipping Industrial Holdings and Seabridge all play a part. The takeover by Vlasov in 1975 brought this fascinating tale to its end. This is a personal story, but one which might be thought of as a microcosm of British shipping, so deserves a far wider readership than one which has some direct involvement in the various companies. Beautifully illustrated, it is also accompanied by comprehensive data about the ships operated during this family s shipping century. --Lloyds List April 2009
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