Hongkong, Canton & Macao Steamboat Company

The Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company was a British merchant shipping and maritime trading company founded in 1865 in the Crown colony of Hong Kong.

Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company Limited

flag of the Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company.
Native name	省港澳輪船公司
Company type	Private company limited by shares[1]
Traded as	HKCR No. 0000002[1]
Industry	Shipping, Transport, Freight, Merchant shipping
Founded	October 20, 1865; 159 years ago (1865-10-20) at Hong Kong[1]
Founder	Douglas Lapraik, J. J. dos Remedios, A. E. Vaucher, Arthur Sassoon, R. Solomon, D. Ruttunjee, Bapoorjee Pallunjee Ranjee[2]
Defunct	April 28, 1958 (1958-04-28)[1]
Fate	Defunct
Headquarters	20 Des Voeux Road Central, British Hong Kong
Area served	China trade
Key people	Douglas Lapraik, She Tat-cheong, Percy Hobson Holyoak, A. O. Lang, Phineas Ryrie, Emanuel Raphael Belilios, William Keswick
Products	Ship Management, Ferry, Ocean liners, Property, Container ships, Packet boats
Total assets	$750,000 HKD[2] (1865[2])
Total equity	7,500 shares at $100 HKD each[2] (1865[2])

History

The Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company was founded on 20 October 1865 in Hong Kong by a collection of people tied to the shipping industry in order to support the market for regional ferry transport in the Canton area.^[3] The company was founded in the same year as the founding of the Companies Registry which granted it the company number 2, only behind the British Traders' Insurance Company.^[4]

The HCMSCo was one of the major shipping companies that participated in the Pearl River and China trade together with the China Navigation Company, China Merchants Steam Navigation Company and Jardine Matheson's Indo-China Steam Navigation Company since its creation in the 1860s. China Navigation Company and the HCMSCo had entered into a collaboration to jointly carry out business in the area which continued into the early 1900s.^[5]

With the opening of the West River Trade in 1897, HCMSCo together with the China Navigation Company and Jardine Matheson's Indo-China Steam Navigation Company, partnered together to open the new trade which became active from around 1897 to 1917 following the opening of several Treaty Ports like Wuzhou, Sanshui and Jiangmen to foreign trade in 1897. The West River trade declined with the advent of the Kowloon Canton Railway.^[5]

HCMSCo was dissolved on 28 April 1958.^[1]

Fleet

List of HCMSCo ships

The following is an incomplete list of the HKC&MSCo fleet. A full illustrated fleet list has been published by H.W. Dick and S.A. Kentwell (see references below).

Name	Homeport	Type	Owner/Operator	Year Built	Tonnage	Route	Notes
SS Fire Dart	Hong Kong	paddle steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company	1860	660 GRT[6]	Hong Kong-Canton Line
SS White Cloud	Hong Kong	paddle steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company	Unknown	527 NRT[7]	Canton-Macao Line	Wrecked at Macao during the 1874 Hong Kong typhoon.
SS Kiukang	Hong Kong	river steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company	Unknown	1,284 NRT[7]	Hong Kong-Macao Line
SS Powan	Hong Kong	river steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company	Unknown	1,842 NRT[7]	Hong Kong-Canton Line
SS Honam	Hong Kong	river steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company	Unknown	1,398 NRT[7]	Hong Kong-Canton Line
SS Kiungchow	Hong Kong	river steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company	Unknown	288 NRT[7]	Hong Kong-Canton Line
SS Fatshan	Hong Kong	ferry steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company China Navigation Company	1887	2,260 GRT	Hong Kong-Canton Line	Sold to China Navigation Company[8]
SS Kinshan	Hong Kong	ferry steamer	Hongkong Canton & Macao Steamboat Company China Navigation Company	1903	2,861 GRT	Hong Kong-Canton Line	Acquired by HKCMSCo in 1935, captured by IJA in 1942, sunk by USS Thresher (SS-200) on 29 December 1942 south of Singapore[9]

See also

• China Navigation Company
• China trade