Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company
| Industry | Transportation |
|---|---|
| Successor | Pacific Mail Steamship Company |
| Founded | 1874 |
| Founder | George Bradbury |
| Defunct | 1908 |
| Headquarters | San Francisco |
|
Area served
|
Pacific Ocean |
| Services | Cargo and passenger |
| Owner | Central Pacific Railroad & Union Pacific Railroad |
The Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company (sometimes abbreviated to O&O) was an American shipping company founded in 1874 by US railroads wishing to provide competition to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company which had not complied with its obligations to them. Chartering vessels from different companies, the most important being the British White Star Line, the company quickly became financially successful, against the expectations of its founders.
Having succeeded in its primary objective, the O&O proved a serious competitor to the Pacific Mail, to the point that in 1900, the vice president of the latter became its president. In the following years, Pacific Mail having commissioned more powerful ships, the O&O gradually ended its chartering contracts. On October 30, 1906, the SS Coptic made the company's last crossing, which nevertheless continued to advertise sailings until July 1908.
The Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company was founded in late 1874, at the initiative of George Bradbury, former president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. This company had signed agreements with several US railroads, ensuring that its passengers from Asia would use the transcontinental railway lines to travel from the West Coast to the East Coast once landed in San Francisco. The agreement, set up at the completion of the railway line in 1869, had proved effective until 1873, when Pacific Mail, after commissioning new vessels, decided that their passengers could travel more profitably by the ithsmus of Panama rather than take the transcontinental train. In order to threaten the place of the Pacific Mail on the route from Hong Kong to San Francisco, and thus force it to respect its agreements, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific united to form the O&O with an equity capital of ten million dollars shared between them. Bradbury becoming the president of the new company.
Bradbury immediately travelled to London in search of charter contracts. He had a meeting in October 1874 with the chairman of the White Star Line, Thomas Henry Ismay, which lead to a two-year charter agreement for three vessels: two cargo-liners, the SS Gaelic and the SS Belgic; also the RMS Oceanic, the first luxury liner of the company, which had become redundant on the North Atlantic route. This last ship providing the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company with a prestige vessel for its service. With great pomp, the Oceanic left Liverpool for Hong Kong, to commence operations on its new route with a stop in Yokohama en route to San Francisco. It set a Pacific crossing record of 16 days and 10 hours, 8 days less than the ships of the Pacific Mail. In 1876 it reduced that to 14 days and 15 hours. This success laid the foundations of a long collaboration between the two companies, White Star supplying British officers while O&O provided the Chinese crews.
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Wikipedia