Nourse Line

The Nourse Line was a shipping company formed by Captain James Nourse in 1861. After taking delivery of his first ship, the Ganges, in 1861, Nourse went on to build up one of the last great of sailing ships.

James Nourse was born in County Dublin in 1828 and after serving the required time at sea obtained his Master’s Certificate in London in 1851 and was hired as captain on a ship owned by W.N. Lindsay of London. A year later, he joined Foley, Aikman & Company of Glasgow as Master aboard Aberfoyle. Nourse served in the ship for three years before it caught fire. He then became the captain of the Tasmania until 1861.

Nourse bought his first ship, the 839 ton iron hulled sailing vessel, Ganges in 1861, by buying 75% share in the ship bought from the ship builders Pile, Hay & Company of Sunderland. The Ganges sailed to India to trade between Calcutta and Australia where James Nourse made acquaintance with the owners of Sandbach, Tinne & Company who were importers and exporters, mainly concerned with sugar, coffee, rum, molasses and also trafficking in Melanesian labour. Nourse saw a future in these trades and relinquished his command of Ganges to concentrate on management. He went set up an office in London in 1864 and acquired full ownership of Ganges. James Nourse secured a contract with the Crown Agents for the Colonies, to provide service between India and Mauritius, the West Indies and Fiji. Once the contracts were secured James Nourse bought another ship and chartered a third.

He then began transporting Indian indentured labourers to the West Indies. The general route for the fleet was to leave a European port with a cargo of salt or railway iron for Calcutta. From there a cargo of rice and indentured labourers were picked up for the West Indies, followed by a passage to the east coast of North America where grain or oil was loaded for Europe. Some ships sailed back direct to Calcutta from the West Indies with labourers who had completed their contract of employment. Other voyages were made from Calcutta to Mauritius or to the Fiji Islands with labour for the sugar plantations. Voyages to Fiji usually returned to Calcutta via Australia with cargoes of coal.

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