P&O invents Cruising
The formative years of P&O 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, and for cruising, a 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 in 1843 P&O continued to develop these very 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 1880’s, 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 for the Australian market with cruises sailing on a regular basis 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 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 one by one the great mail steamers that provided 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 1950’s 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 was spectacular and quickly became one of the most popular holidays for Australians and New Zealanders with ships being based permanently in the region. The first was HIMALAYA followed by the ORCADES, ARCADIA, SEA PRINCESS, ORIANA, FAIRSTAR and 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. The fleet currently consists of PACIFIC SUN and PACIFIC STAR, which in October 2007 will be joined by Australia’s first superliner, PACIFIC DAWN
