Company names and their ships names

[John Arton]

As you do on a quiet Sunday after a heavy Sunday dinner, my mind started to wander and I suddenly thought, how did they come up with those shipping companies names and the names of their ships.
I did 20 odd years in Canadian Pacific steamships which was an offshoot of Canadian Pacific railroad, so it's name was self evident. It's cargo ships initially all were Beaver****, and the reason for that was the Beaver was an important contribution to not only migration to Canada but also it's initial wealth,(Griff Rees Jones, voyage across Canada, explains it in episode 2). When the company started new building of tankers and bulkers inthe late sixties, they initially used the names of past and present CPR chairman and when they ran out used the Fort prefix, naming the ships after RCMP forts.
So, how did vestey come up with Blue Star Line, what did the originators of the likes of Port line, Blue Funnel P&O ( what peninsula does the name refer to, Iberian peninsula?) Plus many other company names. As regards ships naming, Blue Star obviously just stuck the name of the ports it's ships went to in front of Star, but where did blue flu get it's names of ships from?, Elder Dempster, did they use ports names for their ships, BP was easy, just use British** and stick anything after it, shell tankers were all, I believe, after some mollusc or shell fish, a replica of which was always placed on the ship named after it.
I know many companies were named after their founders but that still leaves to there thoughts behind the naming of their ships.
Ponder on you may, or just fall asleep after a Sunday dinner and the sports pages of your preferred Sunday newspaper.
Rgds
J.A.

[cappy]

Had 30 footer once.....called her Harbour lights.....after a bar in shields ....it was a great relaxer .....got my old mates from shields down to yorkshire a few cases of beer.. wife did a big chunk of beef for us and we boiled a pan of tatties .....after peeling tatties in the bleedin galley for two long trips on tramps .....i decided to be the master ....and the bludgers job was to keep my glass full ....i had one mate who was in advertising ...he had a roller .....i kept telling him get them frigging eyes out and strangely one so called hard case.... who wouldnt pick an eel up....happy days 683532

[J Gowers]

I was with Denholms for 10 years 74-84 and all the Denholms owned ships, not managed ships, were named after Greenock parks where the company was founded in the 1800s. The story goes that when they ran out of Greenock and Gourock parks they were going to call a ship the Denholmpark but as it was over 10 letters it would count as two words when sending radio faxes so they called one ship the Denpark and another the Holmpark. This may have been an urban myth though.

Later I went to on to drilling rigs and the company I worked for merged with SONAT, an American company, and their rigs were all named after company directors etc. They had one rig based in the USA was named after a director called 'Pratt Rather' however when it came to the North Sea they had to change the name to Sonat Rather for obvious reasons.

[cappy]

Sailed in an ore carrier the Mabel Warwick .......a really great job plenty ovies and good meat..any stores no problem.....named i believe after the chairmans wife ......i was second steward ......an old AB came up and gave me a hard look ......we want wor wack ......i ses there is no problem here...there is all the stores you want ...not like some i sailed on.....any way we want wor wack .....i told him again look send the messman up and i will see he is alright .....thicky we want wor wack .....ok thats no problem so gave the messman a lower batch .......a few days later back he comes theres sommat wrong you are robin us ....them arab fireman have loads of everything.... we had shields somalis down below ..FFS i told you theres plenty of everthing you want and you wanted your wack .....so off he went effin and blinding .....old timers been through the war that was the last of themin the 50s and sixties there was some proper hard cases then who had seen real hard times.....R638532

[vic mcclymont]

#3, also named after Parks in Port Glasgow.
Vic

[Doc Vernon]

Well think that the UCL Ships were of course named after all the Castles of Scotland, of course there may be a few that dont?
Such as my first one the old Dunnottar Castle. And the likes of Warwick, Braemar,Stirling,Winchester etc.

And then of course there were the Place names as well with the likes of the Durban, Cape Town, Southampton etc.

As for the Company name well guess could be from the getting together of the Companies to form just one thus the Union!
But there may well be deeperr Roots to the names!
Cheers

cappy We had a Mabel on the Warwick Castle LOL

[j.sabourn]

#4 Those same Shields firemen being of a different religion Cappy got steak for breakfast instead of bacon another sore point for any sea lawyer. Cheers JS

[j.sabourn]

Runcimans of Newcastle on Tyne all named Something Moor as company was also known as Moor Line
Avonmoor to Zurrichmoor at one time a shipfor every letter of the alphabet.
R.S Dalgliesh all shipsfinished with Worth e.g Pennyworth ,Ravensworth , Warkworth. Etc.
John I Jacobs all ships ending in Wood e.g.Beechwood Laurelwood etc.
Seaforth Maritime all ships starting with Seaforth
Haven Shipping all ships finishing with Haven e.g. Johnshaven Sandhaven Burnhaven.
Chowgule Steamships all shipsstarting with Maratha eg. Maratha Endeavour Maratha Envoy
All easy to remember so the office boy didn’t forget.
JS

[happy daze john in oz]

UCL, part of British and Commonwealth Shipping, made sense as the ships mainly went to what were commonwealth countries.
P&O, Peninsular and oriental, well many of the countries were Oriental.

Once was told the name of a new ship was the choice of the company CEO, could be true who knows.
All manner of funny names for some, but for many it was based on one subject, as UCL all castle, NZSC all names no one understood unless you were a Kiwi.

[vic mcclymont]

#6, good job you weren't a Navigator Doc.
Stirling, Braemar and Dunnottar are all in Scotland.
Report card says you must do better LOL.
Vic