PIONEER SHIPOWNERS By Clement Jones Mr. Clement Jones, who is
well versed in the history of our merchant service, wrote, some years ago, the biographies of sixteen pioneer shipowners. He has now produced a second volume containing the lives of ten or a dozen more (Liverpool : Journal of Commerce, los. 6d.), with their portraits. Such a
book is valuable, as showing how individual enterprise has built up our great mercantile marine despite many obstacles and losses. Mr. Jones begins with Captain Daniel Brockle- bank, of Whitehaven, the eighteenth-century founder of a family well known in Liverpool's shipping trade. James Beazley (1819-91), who engaged his fast vessels in the Aus- tralian trade after 185o and owned some of the famous " clippers " bringing tea from China, was an interesting figure. Thomas and John Henderson, of Glasgow, founders of the Anchor Line in 1852, had commanded sailing ships before they began to build a great business as shipowners takinl: emigrants to America and cargoes everywhere. Alfred Ho:: (1829-1911) was a railway engineer before he started vet-. humbly as owner of a small brig in the iron-ore trade, to end as controller of the Blue Funnel Line. Sir Thomas Suther- land made his mark as Hongkong agent of the P. and 0. starting the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and the Hongkong Dock Company, much to the annoyance of his very con- servative directors in London. Mr. Jones writes very well. and his book is a useful contribution to the modern histor\ of British shipping.
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