4-538: The African Steamship Company was a British shipping line in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The company was founded in 1852 by Macgregor Laird , the younger son of the shipbuilder William Laird , and based in Birkenhead . The main focus of the company at first was trading with the Niger River area and other west African ports, bringing west-African palm oil back to Britain. The monthly mail steamer to
8-603: A transatlantic route using large cargo vessels, trading from Liverpool to the St Lawrence River and from Liverpool to the southern ports of the United States. A later route from Bristol to St Lawrence was also established. The company also diversified into a number of businesses related to the trade, including a bank, oil-mills for processing the palm oil, a hotel in Grand Canary for tourists, and
12-603: The British and African Steam Navigation Company , was founded, but both companies later came to an arrangement on sailing times. The business of the African Steamship company was purchased by Elder, Dempster and Company , Limited in 1891, who had bought the British and African Steam Navigation Company two years earlier, although both companies continued operating as distinct organisations. Further expansion began with
16-480: The then Gold Coast (now Ghana ), appointed by Royal Charter , came with a subsidy of 30,000 pounds sterling per year from the British government , starting from 1852. In 1864 the African Steamship Company was taken over by Fletcher & Parr of Liverpool and, in turn, in 1891 absorbed into Elder Dempster & Co. The company proved sufficiently successful that in 1869 a rival company,
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