Remembering the Union Castle shipping line

REMEMBERING THE UNION-CASTLE SHIPPING LINE

Brian Ingpen, maritime educator, author and journalist

Thursday 23 January  5.00 pm  COURSE FEES R110; Staff and students R55

For 120 years the Union-Castle shipping line (and its ancestral companies) provided an essential service moving mail, cargo and passengers between Britain and South Africa. For a time the company also carried mail between Britain and the British East African colonies. Over the years the size of the ships increased, with greater cargo and passenger capacity. The largest vessel, Windsor Castle, carried 820 passengers and about 16 000 tons of cargo.

Operating on a strict schedule, Union-Castle’s ‘mail ships’ were punctual, assuring shippers of a reliable service that ensured that their cargoes would arrive at their destination on time, while travellers could book passages with certainty of the dates and duration of the voyages. Freight rates and passenger fares were generally higher than those of other ships on account of this. Nevertheless, many locals enjoyed the company’s ten-day coastal voyages.

In the 1950s air travel made inroads into ocean passenger markets, accelerated by the advent of jumbo jets in South Africa in 1971, providing a shorter trip (11 hours as opposed to 11 days) between Britain and Cape Town.

Higher crew salaries – following a protracted strike – and higher fuel prices increased the ships’ operating costs, but the final blow was the containerisation of the South Africa-Europe cargo service that would take away the mail ships’ high-tariffed freight, their main source of revenue.

The last passenger mail ship left Cape Town in September 1977, followed two weeks later by the last mail ship. The sun had set on the 120-year-old mail ship service, renowned for its punctuality, tradition and on- board elegance.

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