Titanic/ White Star Line

The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, more commonly known as The White Star Line, was a prominent shipping company, most famous for its ill-fated luxury flagship, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of her sister ship, Britannic. more...

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History

Early history

The original company bearing the name White Star Line was founded in Liverpool, England by John Pilkington and Henry Threlfall Wilson, and focused on the Australian trade, which had increased following the discovery of gold there. The fleet initially consisted of chartered sailing ships, the Blue Jacket (later renamed White Star), the Red Jacket, the Ellen and the Iowa but it acquired its first steamship in 1863 with the Royal Standard. One notable ship was Tayleur, whose fate would haunt the company.

The company merged with other small lines, the Black Ball and Eagle Lines to form a conglomerate called the Liverpool, Melbourne and Oriental Steam Navigation Company Limited. This did not prosper and White Star broke away and concentrated on the Liverpool to New York service. Heavy investment in new ships was financed by borrowing, but the company's bank, the Royal Bank of Liverpool, failed in October 1867 leaving the company with an outstanding debt of £527,000, and it entered bankruptcy.

The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company

Thomas Ismay, a director of the National Line, purchased the house flag, trade name and goodwill of the bankrupt company for 1,000 pounds sterling on 18 January 1868, with the intention of operating large ships on the North Atlantic service. Ismay established the company's headquarters at the Albion House, Liverpool.

Over a game of billiards with Gustavus C. Schaube, a prominent Liverpool merchant, and his nephew, Gustav Wolff, Ismay was told that if he agreed to have his ships built by Wolff's company, Harland and Wolff, Schaube would agree to finance the new line. Ismay agreed, and a partnership with Harland and Wolff was established. The shipbuilders received their first orders on 30 July 1869. The agreement was that Harland and Wolff would build the ships at cost plus a fixed percentage and would not build any vessels for the White Star's rivals. In 1870 William Imrie joined the managing company. As the first ship was being commissioned, Ismay formed the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company to operate the steamers in the process of construction.

Four ships were initially constructed for the Oceanic class; the Oceanic (I), Atlantic, Baltic, and Republic and the line began operating again in 1871 between New York and Liverpool (with a call at Queenstown (Cobh)).

It was (and still is) common for shipping lines to have a common theme for the names of its ships. In the case of the White Star Line, this was to use the suffix ic (e.g. Titanic, in contrast to Cunard's use of ia (e.g. Carpathia). The line also adopted a buff-coloured funnel with a black top as a distinguishing feature for its ships, as well as its distinctive house flag (or burgee), a red broad pennant with two tails with a white five-pointed star.

Read more at Wikipedia.org