Category: Anchor Line

Categories: Passenger Lines | Cunard Line

The Anchor Line's beginnings can be traced to 1855 when Captain Thomas Henderson from Fife became a partner in the shipping agent firm of N & R Handyside & Co, of Glasgow who operated a few sailing vessels. This resulted in the formation of the company Handysides & Henderson with the aim of establishing a New York service. Although at first they only operated to India under sail, in 1856 the company advertised it was to begin transatlantic sailings and the sailing ship Tempest was sent to Randolf and Elder, to have 150 horsepower compound steam engines installed. In October of that year the first Anchor Line service to New York set sail. Unfortunately, the following year the Tempest was lost at sea.

By 1866 the company was operating weekly sailings from Glasgow and had also initiated services to the Mediterranean, Calcutta and Bombay (once the Suez Canal had opened). In 1873, ownership of the company was transferred to the Thomas Henderson and his brothers John, David, and William.

Despite successes, in the first 50 years of operation more than 20 ships were lost. The worst of these was in 1891 when the SS Utopia collided with the battleship HMS Anson in harbour at Gibraltar and sank with the loss of over 500 lives.

Upon the death of the Henderson brothers towards the end of the 19th century, the company restructured, becoming Anchor Line (Henderson Brothers) Ltd. in 1899, building large new offices on St. Vincent Street, modernising much of its fleet and in 1910 moving its berth to the newly built Yorkhill Quay. Its success drew the attention of the Cunard Line and in 1911 the Anchor Line was effectively taken over and the chairman of Cunard became the chairman of the Anchor Line. With the onset of the Great Depression, the Anchor Line struggled and in 1935 Cunard withdrew from the company and it went into liquidation.

The shipping magnate, Lord Runciman, saved the company, allowing it to retain its identity, but following World War II it struggled once again to change with the times. Its core markets gradually disappeared with the expansion of air transport. The company restructured several times to try and stay abreast of events but the last Anchor line ships were finally withdrawn from service in 1980 and the company was no more.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Anchor Line (steamship company)
• TheShipsList: Anchor Line

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