The Company That Invented Cruising
The Past
We're not talking last minute cruises! Founded in 1837, the ships of P&O Cruises have been cruising the world for over 160 years. P&O first took voyages known as 'excursions,' when passengers from England travelled with the Royal Mails to ports on the Iberian Peninsular and the Mediterranean, returning home on other P&O mail voyages.
P&O Cruises really began in 1815 when Brodie McGhie Wilcox opened a ship-broking firm in Lime Street, London. After partnering with a former seaman, Arthur Anderson, the company called Wilcox and Anderson started trading with a small fleet of sailing ships between England and the Iberian Peninsular countries of Spain and Portugal. Wilcox and Anderson prospered and worked hard to secure return cargoes. The two countries allowed the firm to combine their colours - the blue and white of Portugal and the red and yellow of Spain, to form the company flag. This soon became synonymous with passenger shipping services and cruises from England to the East and Australia.
In 1840 Wilcox and Anderson was awarded a new contract to extend their service to the Egyptian port of Alexandria via Malta. The new contract required that the voyage from England to Alexandria be accomplished in 15 days. The first vessel to open this service was the newly built 1,787-ton paddle-wheel steamship ORIENTAL, reflecting the Company's arrival in the East. At the same time the name of the firm was changed to the now familiar Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company or P&O.
P&O's sister company the Orient Line introduced regular cruising from the UK in the 1880s with the CHIMBORAZO and GARRONE to Baltic and Northern ports, while P&O's first dedicated cruise ship was the 1904 VECTIS of 5,500 tons, which carried 180 passengers. When P&O pioneered cruising from Australia in 1932 the new 23,000-ton mail steamer STRATHAIRD carried 1,100 passengers on the first cruise to Brisbane and Norfolk Island.
Today
Today P&O Cruises is Australia and New Zealand's leading cruise line to destinations in the South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Asia from Sydney, Brisbane, Fremantle, Newcastle and Auckland. Our local fleet currently consists of the 47,000 ton PACIFIC SUN carrying 1,900 passengers and the 70,000 ton superliner PACIFIC DAWN with 2,050 passengers. Australia's second superliner, the 70,000 ton PACIFIC JEWEL carrying 2,050 passengers will join the fleet in December 2009 as the most modern and contemporary cruise ship ever to be based in Australia. Pacific Dawn introduced 'Your Choice Cruising' and more choices, including balcony cabins, spectacular entertainment and dining with five different evening venues. Pacific Jewel will introduce the largest Spa afloat and a new form of evening entertainment, Pacific Cirque™, our Cricus at sea extravaganza.
Another sister company, Princess Cruises, bases two ships in Australia year round. The 77,000-ton DAWN PRINCESS and SUN PRINCESS now offer cruises tailored to Australians sailing Round Australia and to Tasmania, New Zealand, the South Pacific islands and even a world voyage.
The formative years of P&O Cruises and its early struggle to survive owe much to the remarkable energy and negotiating skills of Arthur Anderson. A man of foresight he can also be credited with the invention of cruising.
In 1835 he started a newspaper in his native Shetland. To fill an empty space in the first issue he inserted an advertisement for an imaginary cruise to the islands off Scotland. The idea was radical but indicated the breadth of his thinking and foreshadowed what is now one of the fastest growing leisure industries in the world.
On 14 March 1843 P&O placed an historic, pioneering advertisement in the 'Times' of London for a round voyage in the 782-ton paddle steamer TAGUS. The advertisement read:
INTERESTING and CLASSIC EXCURSION
Steam to Constantinople, calling at
Gibraltar, Malta, Athens, Syria, Smyrna, Mytilene and the Dardenelles.
From that singular advertisement, P&O continued to develop our popular 'classic' voyages. In 1844 the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray sailed around the Mediterranean using these voyages as a guest of P&O's. From this experience he wrote the popular book, 'From Cornhill to Cairo.'
Regular cruising came later in the mid 1880s. The Orient Line was one of the pioneers when it entered the trade in 1889 with two of their Australian Mail steamers, the CHIMBORAZO and GARRONE, in which they offered cruises from London to Baltic and Northern ports. In 1904 P&O refitted their 5,545-ton Australian mail steamer ROME as a cruise ship, renaming her VECTIS.
She made P&O's first cruise in the 1904 summer season from London to the Norwegian Fjords and remained in the cruising trade until she was replaced in 1912.
Cruising in Northern waters from the United Kingdom developed steadily and became a permanent seasonal fixture in the schedules of most shipping companies. Small scale cruising from Sydney had long been the preserve of Australian coastal steamship companies. In 1932 both P&O and the Orient Line started cruising with two of their large mail steamers. P&O was the first with the 22,544-ton STRATHAIRD sailing from Sydney on 23 December 1932 on a cruise to Norfolk Island. On the following day, 24 December 1932, the 20,000-ton ORONSAY sailed to Noumea on that company's first cruise from Sydney, and established Noumea as one of the most popular South Pacific ports of call.
Cruising from Sydney in the big Royal Mail Steamers became an increasingly popular form of holiday with cruises sailing throughout the year to ports in New Zealand, Fiji, Papua-New Guinea, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. In addition both companies extended the cruising market from Australia with very popular voyages to and from Ceylon and India using the Mail steamers on the regular service to and from England.
Cruising new horizons
Cruising was brought to a sudden stop in 1939 with the start of World War II. The necessity of transporting enormous numbers of troops and personnel around the world required that all British registered passenger and cargo ships be put into the transport service and the great mail steamers providing cruises from Australia were requisitioned by the British Government for war service.
Cruising resumed in Australia in 1953. The rigid pre-war mail contracts that required weekly sailings from and to Australia were gradually replaced in the 1950s with aircraft contracts, a development that accelerated with the introduction of the Boeing 707 jet aircraft. As mail voyages became fewer, ships were transferred to the cruising schedule. For Australia the next major development in cruising came between March and October 1968 when the legendary HIMALAYA was based in Sydney and undertook eight consecutive cruises to the South Seas.
The growth of cruising from Australia has been spectacular and is now one of the most popular holidays for Australians and New Zealanders. P&O Cruises first permanent ship was HIMALAYA followed by the ORCADES, ARCADIA, SEA PRINCESS, ORIANA, FAIRSTAR, FAIR PRINCESS and PACIFIC SKY. P&O Cruises is the only cruise line today operating year-round from Australia to the South Pacific and Queensland.
Bibliography
This history was compiled from Company records and the following sources by Carnival Australia's Historian, Robert Henderson. For much more historical information on past sailings by P&O Cruises and Passenger Lists contact robhenderson@iprimus.com.au
'A HUNDRED YEAR HISTORY OF THE P & O'
By Boyd Cable
1st edition September 1937
Published by Ivor Nicholson & Watson Ltd., London
'THE STORY OF P & O'
By David Howarth and Stephen Howarth Revised Edition 1994
Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London
ISBN 0-297-83358-8
'ORIGINS, ORIENT and ORIANA'
By Charles F. Morris
Published 1980 by Teredo Books Ltd, Brighton, U.K
ISBN 0 903662 07 8
'THE POSTAL HISTORY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (1788-1901)'
General Editor John S. White, FRPSL
Published by the Philatelic Association of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
ISBN 0 73162725 3
'LORDS of the EAST' (The East India Company and its Ships 1600-1874)
By Jean Sutton, 2000 Edition Published by Conway Maritime Press, U.K.
ISBN 0 85177 786 4
'CRUISE SHIPS, AN EVOLUTION IN DESIGN'
By Philip Dawson, 2000 Published by Conway Maritime Press, U.K.
ISBN 0 85177 660 4
'CARRYING BRITISH MAILS OVERSEAS'
By Howard Robinson, 1964 Published by George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London
'P & O and the AUSTRALIAN TRADES (1870-1914)'
By Dr. Freda Harcourt
A paper delivered at the 1993 conference 'New Directions in Maritime History,'
Organised by Australian Association for Maritime History and the International
Commission of Maritime History