Khedivial Mail S.S. Company
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Khedivial Mail S.S. Company was a British steamship company, established in 1898, that ran shipping services from Alexandria, Egypt and Suez, as well as shiprepair facilities, in succession to earlier ventures by the Egyptian authorities.
Origins
[edit]The company was a successor to the Medjidieh, a steamship company that operated in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, created by Said Pasha.[1] The Medjidieh was also referred to as the Egyptian Steam Navigation Company, and quickly failed under the leadership of Said Pasha. His successor, Isma'il Pasha, restarted the venture in May 1863 in the hopes of creating a merchant marine for the modernising Egyptian nation.[2] After falling into debt, Ismail used the company as leverage to try to gain control of and merge with the Egyptian Commercial and Trading Company, a European trading firm based in Egypt, in order to become a player in European financial markets.[3] That venture was unsuccessful, and the merger never materialised.
Formation
[edit]In May 1898, the Egyptian Government sold the fleet of the "Poste Khedivieh Administration", as well as certain ship repair facilities at Suez and Alexandria, to the British merchants Allen, Alderson and Company of Alexandria and Frank Reddaway of Birmingham, acting on behalf of the new British company Khedivial Mail Steamship and Graving Dock Company Limited, established with a capital of £300,000. That fleet consisted of three ships built in 1892 in Scotland and operating on the Alexandria-Piraeus-Constantinople route, as well as eight old ships servicing Syria ports and the Suez-Red Sea services. The new company raised capital to finance the purchase, further fleet renewal and the construction of a new drydock at Alexandria. They received an operating subsidy from the Egyptian Government and undertook to continue the existing mail services, with an exclusive concession for commercial passenger traffic on those routes.[4] Its ships sailed under the British Flag.
| Ship | O.N. | Launched | Builder | Tonnage (GRT) |
Disposal and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tewfik Rabbani | 110139 | 1891 | Robert Napier & Sons, Govan | 2027 | Passenger-cargo. Sold 1900 to France, renamed La Marsa. 1923 renamed Miliana, 1931 broken up.[5] |
| Prince Abbas | 110138 | 1891 | Robert Napier & Sons, Govan | 2027 | Passenger-cargo. Sold 1916. Torpedoed 9 July 1917 29 nautical miles (54 km; 33 mi) east of Fair Island.[6] |
| El Kahira | 110140 | 1892 | Robert Napier & Sons, Govan | 2027 | Passenger-cargo. Sold 1920. Last seen 9 July 1922 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) west of Les Casquets, heading for Algiers.[7] |
| Charkieh | 52687 | 1864 | Thames Iron Works, Blackwall | 1615 | Passenger-cargo. Wrecked 18 September 1900 off Karystos, Greece in a gale |
| Dakahlieh | 52728 | 1865 | Money Wigram, Blackwall | 1438 | Passenger-cargo. 1923 broken up |
| Fayoum | 110137 | 1864 | Samuda Brothers, Cubitt Town | 1642 | Passenger-cargo. 1909 broken up |
| Mahallah | 50495 | 1864 | Matthew Pearse and Co, Stockton-on-Tees | 1105 | Cargo. 1910 broken up |
| El Rahmanieh | 52697 | 1865 | Richardson Duck and Co, Stockton-on-Tees | 1688 | Cargo |
| Chibine | 50170 | 1864 | J Ash & Co., London | 677 | Cargo. Ex-Octavia. Wrecked 9 March 1900 on the Sherateeb Shoal in the Gulf of Suez, 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) north-west of El Tor |
| Missir | 51063 | 1864 | Barclay Curle, Glasgow | 626 | Cargo. Ex-Argyll. 29 May 1918 torpedoed 80 nautical miles (150 km; 92 mi) west of Alexandria.[8] |
| Neghileh | 51065 | 1864 | Barclay Curle, Glasgow | 677 | Cargo. Ex-Moray. Sold 1919, broken up 1923.[9] |
The company was purchased by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company in 1919 as part of P&O's post-war expansion.[10] It continued to operate and expand, later adopting shipping routes that would bring its ships to the United States.
The company once again changed its name, to the Pharaonic Mail Line, in 1936. It was finally nationalized by the Egyptian government in 1961, forming the United Arab Maritime Company, later the Egyptian Navigation Company.
References
[edit]- ^ Landes 1958, p. 84.
- ^ Landes 1958, p. 149.
- ^ Landes 1958, p. 194.
- ^ "Public Notices". Shipping & Mercantile Gazette and Lloyd's List. No. 18955. London. 8 June 1898. p. 7. Retrieved 4 November 2024.
- ^ "Tewfik Rabbani". Scottish Built Ships. Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ "Prince Abbas". Scottish Built Ships. Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ "El Kahira". Scottish Built Ships. Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ "Argyll". Scottish Built Ships. Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Retrieved 5 November 2024.
- ^ "Moray". Scottish Built Ships. Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. Retrieved 4 November 2024.
- ^ Howarth 1986, p. 124.
Bibliography
[edit]- Howarth, David; Howarth, Stephen (1986). The Story of P & O, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-78965-1.
- Landes, David S. (1979). Bankers and Pashas: International Finance and Economic Imperialism in Egypt. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press. p. 194. ISBN 9780674061651.