Canadian Pacific Steamships
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Formerly called
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Canadian Pacific Steamship Company |
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| Industry | Shipping |
| Founded | 1887 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| Founder | William Cornelius Van Horne |
| Headquarters | City Place Gatwick, London, UK |
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Area served
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Global |
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Key people
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Ronald Niel Stuart, Samuel Robinson, John Wallace Thomas |
CP Ships was a large Canadian shipping company established in the 19th century. From the late 1880s until after World War II, the company was Canada's largest operator of Atlantic and Pacific steamships. Many immigrants travelled on CP ships from Europe to Canada. The sinking of the steamship RMS Empress of Ireland was the largest maritime disaster in Canadian history. The company provided Canadian Merchant Navy vessels in World Wars I and II. Twelve vessels were lost due to enemy action in World War II including the largest ship sunk by a German U-Boat.
The company moved to a model of container shipping from passenger, freight and mail service in the 1960s due to competitive pressure from the airline industry. The company was a part of the Canadian Pacific Ltd. conglomerate. It was spun out as a separate company in 2001. In 2005, it was purchased by TUI AG and is now part of the company's Hapag-Lloyd division.
The Atlantic and Pacific passenger liners of Canadian Pacific were always British-flagged and largely British-manned and were not part of the Canadian Merchant Marine, ownership being with the British-registered Canadian Pacific Steamships Ltd. subsidiary.
In the early 1880s, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) negotiated with the Government of the United Kingdom to establish a trans-Pacific steamship routes between Vancouver and the Far East. The trans-Pacific services of Canadian Pacific were begun by Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, the Canadian-American builder of the railroad network in 1887. In that year, Sir William chartered three vessels from Cunard Line; the SS Abyssinia, the SS Parthia, and the SS Batavia—as a beginning of the CP fleet. The agency for chartering and managing the ships was secured by Adamson, Bell and Company for the first three years. When the new shipping line had shown to be profitable, Canadian Pacific decided not to renew the contract with Adamson, Bell and Company and to run the line itself.
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Wikipedia