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P & O - A FLEET HISTORY
Stephen Rabson & Kevin O'Donoghue
Forward by: Sir Jeffrey Sterling CBE (P&O Chairman)
Published by: The World Ship Society, Kendal, UK.
1988.
Hard cover ; 583 printed pages. Dimensions: 30.5
cms tall by 21.5 cms wide
This is a definitive history of the Peninsular
& Oriental Steam Navigation Company from its original formation when
it was incorporated by royal charter in 1840. Before that the company
had two managing directors (Brodie McGhie Willcox & Arthur Anderson)
who owned sailing ships running to Spain, Portugal and South America between
1825 and 1841. In 1834, Willcox & Anderson began advertising
sailings between the UK and the Iberian Peninsula and this became the basis
of P&O. The book is divided into 7 sections: "Foundations of
a Legend 1815-1869", "Postman to the Empire 1869-1914", "From One War to
Another 1914-1945", "The Changing Face of Shipping" 1945-1971", "A Year
of Revolution 1971", "Expansion and Retrenchment 1971-1982" and "A New
P&O Group 1982-1988". After the seven sections, there are a further
three appendix that contains "Miscellaneous Tonnage", "Flags & Funnels"
and an "Index of Ships Names and Their Derivations". The photographs
in the flags and funnels section are mainly in colour. Throughout
each section, there are many photographs of ships in that period and details
about them and their individual history, including some I have dived upon.
I cannot begin to count the drawings, plates and photographs of so many
of the ships. A truly invaluable source of details about ships of
the P&O line up to publication in 1988. At some stage, I am sure this
book had a dust jacket but the hard blue binding contains the P&O coat
of arms in gold leaf on the front and the spine contains the book title
and the P&O flag, also in gold leaf. [pt] |
