Orient Steam Navigation Co. Ltd.

The Orient Line grew out of an 18^th century London shipbroking business. By the 1840s this was known as James Thompson & Company and operated sailing vessels tramping throughout the world. By the 1860s they had become Anderson, Thompson & Co. With a three-masted barque named ORIENT, in 1866 part of the business became known as the Orient Line of Packets to Australia - soon shortened to the Orient Line.

In the 1870s there were the first company experiments into steam. In 1878 the Orient S.N. Co was established to expand to Australia. In 1883 there was the first mail contract: to New Zealand. This too was another company which benefited from trooping, during the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902. Liner companies were commercially risky entities and co-operation in various forms often existed. In this case there were ever closer links with the Pacific S.N. Co (that was subsequently taken over by Royal Mail S.P. Co.) and jointly they became the Orient-Royal Mail Line 1907. At this stage they were in competition with P & O. Post First World War P & O acquired 51 per cent of the Orient Line. Also operated within the group, in 1965 P & O took complete control and the next year the Orient name disappeared.

Another company that has not been as well historically as P & O, the source of this information has largely been from one source. This was Duncan Haws: Merchant Fleets in Profile - The Ships of the P & O, Orient and Blue Anchor Lines (Cambridge: Patrick Stephens, 1978).

The National Maritime Museum’s catalogue shows many Orient Line records loaned by the P & O Group. However, there are not all that many dealing with their personnel. Also, I have not managed to see all types of these.

One potentially useful source for genealogists is catalogued as ‘Seagoing Personnel’ for 1943 to 1957. These are questionnaires for captains, engineers, surgeons, pursers and liaison officers and may have been in relation to some sort of marketing effort in Australia. While there are comparatively few of these, they give very good information into individuals including military service during and after the Second World War. Incidentally, with these are two copies of a chart giving the war service of the company’s land-based headquarters.

Another selection of records, a ‘List of Officers & Engineers of Fleet (for use on board ship)’, are perhaps of less use to genealogists than the title suggests. This comprises a number of small green notebooks with lists of officers, as well as probably all men and women rated petty officer on board vessels. These are entered by ships’ names and voyage numbers, I would say that these were more likely to have been used by shore-based headquarters staff than onboard: even if compiled by members of ships’ crews. After all, why should the purser on board, say ORMONDE, have any interest in who was currently 6^th Engineer on ORFORD, or want to know the immediate past voyage number of ORION? However, in genealogical research they may be used as a stop-gap until crew lists and agreements are located. Also, there is one other aspect of these documents which can be found to be interesting, though probably only to ex-mariners and social historians. They are liberally sprinkled with graffiti, showing differences between attitudes on individual ships, rivalries and downright boredom.

Apart from some dealing with pensions, the others comprise three ledgers on ‘stewards’ seemingly ranging from 1884 to approximately 1927; and one dealing with prisoner of war records of the Second World War. However, I have not as yet managed to see these.

One example of each type of Orient Line ‘Seagoing Personnel’ Questionnaires

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