Magnificent liners once graced Bibby fleet

Press, 5 December 1985, Page 55

Magnificent liners once graced Bibby fleet

By

JOHN LESLIE

Just as ships and shipping have changed in New Zealand waters in recent years, so have times changed for overseas veterans of the industry such as Liverpool’s famous Bibby company. The Bibby Line once owned a million deadweight tons of shipping and is most fondly recalled for its magnificent one-class passenger liners.

Only recently, airmailed information from Bibby’s head office in Liverpool advised me that the present fleet consists of just five large L.P.G. carriers, one

tanker, and a coastal (accommodation and service) barge. Passengers are no longer carried, nor does Bibby any longer employ sea staff direct.

The Bibby name in shipping dates back to the early 1800 s when John Bibby, a Lancashire farmer’s son with little money, sought and ultimately found his fortune in Liverpool. He was then in his early 20s and, with five brothers, there was scant scope for a future in farming. Initially, he worked for an iron merchant who forged anchors and chains. Bibby saved and started a shipbroking partnership. By the time he was 31, John Bibby was able to buy a share in four small sailing vessels. The Bibby company was really formed in 1807 and the Bibby Line was truly established as a shipping line later. Initially, John Bibby traded in the Irish Sea, then branched into the South American and Mediterranean trade.

The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 was a boost for all shipowners with eyes on the lucrative Asian trade. Bibby decided to go into the Burma trade in 1890 in fierce competition with the already established Henderson Line. Henderson had its offshoot, the separate Albion Line, already

well established in the New Zealand immigrant trade. Over the years, Bibby and Burma became as synomymous as Hillary and Everest. The Bibby company also broke into the lucrative Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) trade, carrying such cargoes as tea and rubber. Burma provided rice, timber, lead, zinc, and concentrates.

How well one can recall, 50 years ago, the white-clad sahibs and memsahibs strolling the decks of the four-masted Bibby liners on passage through the Suez. They were handsome ships — their tall funnels so diesigned to give a good draught in the tropics. For the passenger trade, the Bibby Line was responsible for designing and implementing the noted ’’Bibby” cabin which was also adopted by other companies in due course. This involved an L-shaped cabin which allowed each stateroom to have a porthole, vital in the tropics. A round voyage from Britain to Rangoon via Suez in a Bibby liner normally took two months and 10 days. These ships carried up to 283 passengers under very pleasant first-class conditions.

Bibby served Britain in peace and war, suffering losses as did other great British merchant fleets.

Carrying troops was a big part of the Bibby business and the company built special ships for this purpose, notably the Devonshire and, better known to New Zealanders, the Oxfordshire which became the liner Fairstar (21,619 tons gross) after sale to the Sitmar Line.

One rarely hears of Burma today, but once it was a jewel within the framework of the Pax Britannica era. Passenger carriage virtually ceased in 1965. With the end of the Burmese passenger trade, Bibby Line cargo vessels traded world wide.

From time to time, the Bibby Line has been involved with other shipping groups. In 1972, for instance, it secured control of the Bristol City Line. More recently it has been part of a consortium running bulk carries—for removal from the Burma trade of earlier days. The company has been also involved in aviation.

Bibby Brothers and Company, to give the firm its present title, is still a family business and still very much alive, with headquarters in Norwich House, Water Street, Liverpool, but the romance has gone from seafaring and, by the end of this century, who knows just how many merchant ships Britain will have left?