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The Allan Shipping Line

1880 James Allan, Merchant & Shipowner, Glasgow. Original Trust Disposition. James Allan was the son of Sandy Allan who formed the 'Allan Shipping Line'. The company was the 5th biggest shipping line in the world. James Allan is named in 'Glasgow's Greatest 100 Men'

1808-1880
Eldest of the five sons of Alexander Allan, founder of the Allan Line shipping business, James Allan was born in Saltcoats. He worked in the family business, trading between the Clyde and Canada, and personally captained the barque "Arabian", built in 1837.
On retiral from the sea he oversaw the shore-based aspects of the business, where his skill lay in sound judgment and judicious personnel management. A modest man, he took little part in public affairs but did undertake the chairmanship of both the Clyde Pilot Board and the Clyde Lighthouse Trust.
When failing health obliged him to withdraw from active involvement in business, he took up summer residence at Skelmorlie, dying here in August 1880. He was survived by four sons and four daughters.
THE commercial and maritime supremacy of Great Britain among the nations has been long acknowledged. Her great home trade, her extensive foreign commerce, and her unequalled merchant shipping, which year by year has increased, have combined to place her in this pre-eminent position. The last half century has witnessed an extraordinary development of each of these branches of trade, but their expansion has not been alike great; the progress of the nation's home and foreign commerce cannot be compared with the growth of her merchant shipping. While within that period the home trade has grown proportionally to her population and the exports and imports of the country have multiplied in value about seven-fold, the effective carrying capacity of her shipping has increased more than twenty-fold, allowance being made for the superiority of steam over sailing ships. The history of this remarkable expansion of the nation's shipping in its earlier stages, and indeed down to quite recent times, might be read in the history, if it were written, of a comparatively small number of her sons, for the shipping property of the country was, until recent years, in few hands, and its development was due to the enterprise and skill of a number of our countrymen - small in comparison to the vast multitude who now form the shipowners of the kingdom.
In the records of the men to whom we owe the early and great development of our merchant fleets, the Allan family must always occupy an honourable place.
The originator of the Allan Line of ships, the father of the subject of this notice, Alexander Allan, was born at Saltcoats, Ayrshire, in 1780.
He was a fine example of the old Ayrshire stock from whom so many of our successful merchants have sprung. Strong of frame, sagacious, self-reliant, and enterprising, with strict notions of honesty and honour, Alexander Allan was the sort of man to strike out from the humble rank in which he was born, and to make his way in the world.
He was by trade a ship carpenter, and for a time pursued his calling at sea, but at an early age he rose to the position of captain and part-owner of the craft in which he sailed. During the Peninsular war the brig which he then commanded, the "Jean" (named after his wife, Jean Crawford), was employed carrying cattle and other supplies to the coast of Spain for the British army. The vessels thus employed were usually put under the protection of an armed convoy to ensure their safety; but impatient of the restraint and delay to his voyages which this imposed upon him, it was Captain Allan's practice to separate himself from the protecting warship and pursue his voyage unaccompanied. His trips to Spain, although somewhat hazardous, were invariably successful, and were performed in shorter time than would have been possible under convoy, where the slowest vessel regulated the pace for all the others.
The "Jean" was the pioneer of the now well-known line to which Captain Allan gave the name. The more ordinary employment of this little vessel was in the Canadian trade, then in its infancy - a trade which the vessels of the Allan Line have ever since regularly pursued.
Captain Allan in his brig made spring and fall voyages between Montreal and Greenock. The tiny cargoes which formed the lading of the craft of this early period in the Canada trade were to a large extent bought on ship's account, and the master of the ship was at once a navigator and a merchant trader.
The manufactured goods which were exported to the colony were the property of the dry goods merchants, many of whom had houses on both sides of the Atlantic; but to a great extent the coal, iron, herrings, sugar and other West India produce, which formed part of the outward cargo, and much of the wheat, peas, flour, pot ashes, and wood with which the vessels were laden homewards, were bought and sold by the master of the ship.
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HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE EVER SEEN ONE OF THESE RUNNING ON MARKET ST??????

These streetcars were awful...during the summer months, it would be like 95 degrees in the interior due to the large windows and no air conditioning. plus the windows can only be opened just a little bit on top.