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For other uses, see White star.
The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, more commonly known as the White Star Line, was a prominent British shipping company, most famous for its ill-fated luxury flagship, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of her sister ship, Britannic. Today, it operates as Cunard Line.
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The first company bearing the name White Star Line was founded in Liverpool, England by John Pilkington and Henry Threlfall Wilson, and focused on the U.K. - Australia trade, which had increased following the discovery of gold there. The fleet initially consisted of chartered sailing ships, RMS Tayleur, the Blue Jacket (later renamed White Star), the Red Jacket, the Ellen and the Iowa. The fate of Tayleur, the largest ship of its day, would haunt the company for years, for it was wrecked on its maiden voyage to Australia off the coast of Ireland. The company acquired its first steamship in 1863, the Royal Standard.
The original White Star Line 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 was forced into bankruptcy.
Thomas Ismay, a director of the National Line, purchased the house flag, trade name White Star Line, 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.
For the rest of the 19th century the White Star Line would own such famous ships as Britannic (I), Germanic, Teutonic and Majestic (I). Several of these ships would eventually take the Blue Riband, awarded to the fastest ship to make the Atlantic crossing.
In 1899, Thomas Ismay commissioned one of the most beautiful steam ships constructed during the 19th century, the Oceanic (II). She was the first ship to exceed the Great Eastern in length (although not tonnage). The building of this ship marked the point where White Star departed from competition in speed with her rivals and concentrated solely on comfort and economy of operation.
Between 1901 and 1907, a quartet of ships known as The Big Four, all over 20,000 tons, were brought into service: Celtic, Cedric, Baltic and Adriatic. In the 19th and early 20th century, the efficiency of coal engines only allowed a feasible speed of about 24 knots (44.4 km/h/27.6 mph). Going above this speed introduced a logarithmic proportion in direct relation to fuel consumption and speed, in that for every knot increased, the required fuel was the previous fuel required plus itself. For this reason, the White Star Line committed to comfort and reliability rather than to speed. As an example, the Titanic was designed for travel at 21 knots (39 km/h), while the Cunard Line\'s Mauretania held the speed record in 1926 for 27 knots (48 km/h).
In 1902, the White Star Line was absorbed into the International Mercantile Marine Co. (IMM), a large American shipping conglomerate. By 1903, IMM had managed to absorb the American Line, Dominion Line, Atlantic Transport Line, Leyland Line, and Red Star Line. They also came to trade agreements with the German lines Hamburg-Amerika and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Bruce Ismay ceded control to IMM in the face of intense pressure from shareholders and J.P. Morgan, who threatened a rate war.
During what is called "The Golden age of Immigration", there were thousands and thousands of people leaving their homelands in Europe and Asia and heading westwards in search of better lives in the United States or Canada, and the White Star Line was among one of the first shipping companies to consider them. The White Star Line was among the first shipping lines to have passenger ships with accommodations for Third Class passengers, whilst in earlier days passage aboard steamships were reserved for First Class and Second Class passengers. The Oceanic Class of liners were each built to carry up to 1,000 passengers in Third Class each crossing, and as time went on that number grew larger and larger. The second Celtic was built to carry 2,350 passengers in Third Class. The White Star Line did a great deal of advertising for immigrants traveling to America and Canada. Their heaviest business was done in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, as well as the Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. A fair deal of business was done in Central and Southern Europe, and they later went as far away as Lebanon with their ticket sales.
The Cunard Line was the direct competition to White Star Line as their fame and success mounted. As a competition piece the White Star Line began construction on their new series, the Olympic class; the Olympic (II), Titanic, and Britannic. Britannic was originally to have been much larger at one thousand feet and named Gigantic; her name was changed shortly after the sinking of Titanic. [1]. The Olympic was the only ship of this class that gave White Star Line a profit. Titanic sank on its maiden Voyage, while Britannic sank without carrying a paying customer. Britannic was sequestered before she was fully fitted, and was used as a Hospital Ship for the British during World War I.
In 1928 a new Oceanic(III) was proposed and her keel was laid down that year at Harland & Wolff but the final ship was never completed. She was to have a new diesel-electric propulsion system and maintain the thousand foot dimensions that had originally been planned for Gigantic and the unbuilt Ceric(1913). As White Star faced financial troubles through the bungling of Lord Kylsant at the end of the twenties, Oceanic\'s keel was dismantled and the steel was used in two new smaller ships built for the White Star, RMS Georgic & RMS Britannic. Both of these ships would enter service in 1930 and would be the last liners White Star ever built. In 1933, White Star and Cunard were both in serious financial difficulties because of the Great Depression, falling passenger numbers and the advanced age of their fleets, particularly White Star\'s. Work had been halted on Cunards\'s new giant, Hull 534 (later the Queen Mary), in 1931, to save money. In 1933, the British government agreed to provide assistance to the two competitors on the condition that they merge. The agreement was completed on December 30, 1933.
The merger took place on the May 10, 1934, creating Cunard-White Star Limited. White Star contributed 10 ships to the new company while Cunard contributed 15 ships. Because of this, and since Hull 534 was Cunard\'s ship, 62% of the company was owned by Cunard\'s shareholders and 38% of the company was owned by White Star\'s shareholders. A year after this merger, the last of the "Olympic Class" ships the Olympic was removed from active duty. Two years later, in 1937, she was scrapped. Panelling from her First Class lounge was salvaged and installed in the restaurant of the White Swan Hotel, Alnwick, Northumberland, England.
In 1947, Cunard acquired the 38% of Cunard White Star it did not already own, and on December 31, 1949, it acquired Cunard White Star\'s assets and operations, and reverted to using the name "Cunard." From the time of the 1934 merger, the house flags of both lines had been flown on all its ships, with each ship flying the flag of its original owner above the other; after 1950, only Georgic and Britannic, the last surviving White Star liners, continued to fly the White Star burgee on a regular basis, above the Cunard house flag. All other ships flew the Cunard flag over the White Star flag until 1968.
The White Star Line\'s London offices, named Oceanic House, still exist today. Located just a block off of Trafalgar Square, here one can still see the name on the building over the entrances. The Texas Embassy Cantina (restaurant) is located on the main level of the building.http://www.texasembassy.com/texasmain.htm Texas Embassy History with reference to Titanic
The French passenger tender Nomadic, the last surviving vessel of the White Star Line, was purchased by the Northern Ireland Department of Social Development in January 2006. She has since been returned to Belfast, where she is to be restored under the auspices of the Nomadic Preservation Trust along with assistance by her original builders, Harland and Wolff. She is intended to serve as the centerpiece of a museum dedicated to the history of Atlantic steam, the White Star Line, and its most famous ship, the Titanic.
Also, the Cunard Line has introduced the White Star Service as the name of its brand of services found on its ships, the Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth 2. The company has also created the White Star Academy, an in-house program with the purpose of preparing new crew members for Cunard ships. The White Star flag is raised on the Queens on every April 15th, in memory of the Titanic disaster.
Of the three Olympic class ships, two never completed a commercial voyage. However, the Olympic, the first of the three to be built, did have a long and successful career and was the only merchant ship in World War I known to have sunk a warship when, on May 12, 1918, she rammed and sank the U-boat U103 which had tried, and failed, to torpedo her. In 1934, while steaming in a fog, the Olympic accidentally rammed the Lightship Nantucket, sinking it and killing seven of the crew.
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