House flags of British shipping companies (13)

Last modified: 2004-08-14 by rob raeside
Keywords: house flag | dornoch steamship | triangle (red) | brocklebank | bank line |
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• Tankers, Ltd
• Teck Hwa Shipping Co., Ltd.
• Temple Steamship Co. Ltd.
• The Dornoch Steamship Co. Ltd
• The Bank Line
• Thomas Royden & Sons
• Thomas Watson, Ltd.
• Thompson Steam-shipping Co.
• Thos. and Jon Brocklebank Ltd
• Townsend Thoresen
• Townsend Thorensen European Ferries
• Trader Navigation Co., Ltd.
• Transatlantic Carriers Ltd.
• Turnbull, Scott & Co.
• Tyne Tees Steam Shipping Company

• House flags of British shipping companies
• House flags of shipping companies
• United Kingdom

Tankers, Ltd

by Jarig Bakker

Tankers, Ltd (belonged to the Athel Line, which in its turn was part of United Molasses) - blue with black parallelogram bordered white, charged with white "T'. Source: All about Ships & Shipping, 1938
Jarig Bakker, 20 October 2003

from Stewart and Styring's Flags, Funnels and Hull Colors 1963
Yes, the image does show the period on the edge of the lozenge.

by Al Fisher, 29 Jan 1999

These two steamship companies have strikingly similar house flags. Both house flags are white with a red triangle. They differ only by the geometry of the triangle. It seems to me very weird that two different companies could have had so similar and potentially confusing house flags.
Ivan Sache, 28 February 2004

It sometimes helps to record the funnel marking as well as the house flag. A white flag with a red triangle, point uppermost, was also the house flag of Lambert Brothers.Ltd. Their ships had black funnels with the red triangle on a white band.
David Prothero, 29 February 2004

The flag is forked, horizontally divided blue-red with a white diamond in the middle.
Ivan Sache, 28 February 2004

from Stewart and Styring's Flags, Funnels and Hull Colors 1963

Thompson Steam-shipping Co.

by James Dignan

Brown 620: Thompson Steam-shipping Co., Ltd., London
Funnel: Yellow with a red T; a black top.
Flag: White, a red, approximately square, diamond in the center, with a white T. The T is about one-third as high as the flag; the square is half the flag's height across.

The flag shown of white with a red diamond bearing a white "T" is, as James states, the flag of Thompson Steamshipping Co. Ltd. (title from Lloyds, some sources show "Steam Shipping"). Neither it nor the company have any connection with Pacific Steam Navigation Co. The flag shown was however also used by V.T. Thompson & Co. of Sunderland in the U.K. who operated at the end of the 19th and beginning of 20th centuries with no apparent connection and the two companies (Thompson Steamshipping dated back to 1892) had different funnels to differentiate them. The initial editions of Stewart shows the flag being flown superior to a red pennant with a white "name" being presumably that of the ship. Brown 1958 incorrectly ascribes the livery to E.G. Thomson Steam Shipping Co., presumably the E.G. Thomson (Shipping) Ltd. who were connected with William Thomson & Co.
Neale Rosanoski, 24 May 2004

from Stewart and Styring's Flags, Funnels and Hull Colors 1963

The company was founded in 1801 in Whitehaven (Lake District), with one sailing ship trading coal. In 1813, the monopoly of the East India Company to India was abolished, and India became Brocklebank's main field of operation, along with Northern and Southern America, and West and East Indies. In 1819, the company moved to Liverpool. It bought its first steamships in 1889 but carried on operating sailing ships until 1901. After the Second World War, the company had only eleven ships. In 1947, the independence of India and Pakistan imposed new trade rules in the area, where Brocklebank's trade was more than halved. The closure of the canal of the Suez Canal in 1967 and the containerization caused the end of trade with India. In 1968, Brocklebank pooled its ships with Cunard in the Cunard-Brocklebank Ltd. The last two ships under Brocklebank's flag were sold in 1983, and it was the end of the company.

Source: The Ships Lists website

The house flag of Brocklebank was vertically divided white-blue. It can be seen on a medal kept in the National Maritime Museum in London. The medal commemorates the loss of SS Matra, mined and sunk by enemy action off Ramsgate on 13 November 1939.

Source: National Maritime Museum website http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/collectionsDetail.cfm?ID=MEC2776

Ivan Sache, 28 February 2004

Pre-1820 house flag, T. & J. Brocklebank Ltd.

by Jarig Bakker

T & J Brocklebank, Ltd. was founded about 1770. Their first houseflag was altered in 1820 to the one which flies today at the foremast. The reason usually given for this is that many of Brocklebank's early vessels were privateers, whose mainmasts were reserved for the letters-of-marque pennant, so the houseflag was relegated to the fore. In books it is asserted that Brocklebank's is the only houseflag worn thus - however Sandbach, Tinne & Co. did it too.

Source: Loughran (1979) "A Survey of Mercantile Houseflags & Funnels"
Jarig Bakker, 28 February 2004

See also: British Privateers

Larousse Commercial Illustré (1930) shows Anchor Brocklebank & Well Lines, Liverpool: vertically divided white-blue, white nearest the hoist. On FOTW-ws under 'Thos. and Jon Brocklebank Ltd'. The company name Larousse gives makes more sense if we know that Cunard purchased Brocklebank and Anchor Line in 1911, followed by the Well Line in 1916.
Jan Mertens, 28 May 2004

Townsend Thoresen flag from about 1965 when the Danish Thoresen company merged with Townsends until about 1984 when the title TT European Ferries was adopted.

Ted Harrison, 11 December 2001

Townsend Thoresen European Ferries from 1983 when P&O acquired the company now P&O European Ferries. By 1988 the Townsend logo had disappeared and the P&O house flag was used.

Ted Harrison, 11 December 2001

from Stewart and Styring's Flags, Funnels and Hull Colors 1963

from Stewart and Styring's Flags, Funnels and Hull Colors 1963

Stewart and Styring noted that the company was renamed to Canatlantic, Ltd. and the newer flag had no lettering, but did not have this depicted. Retained for historical accuracy, listed as out of London.

Turnbull, Scott & Co.

by James Dignan

Based on Sampson (1957)
James Dignan, 8 October 2003

Brown 79: Turnbull, Scott & Co., London
Funnel: Black, a simple red heraldic shield with a white border, charged with the letters "TS" in white.
Flag: 2:3, red with the letters "TS" in white. (Brown pictures the letters almost half the height of the flag, and places them approximately a letters width apart; James' images has them one-third the height, and close together.)
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 20 October 2003

Company founded 1872. Appears to have done ship management for the government at some time during WWII.
Phil Nelson, 9 October 2003

Tyne Tees Steam Shipping Company

by Jarig Bakker

Red, with a lion rampant holding a pennoned lance on top of a castle tower (all white).
James Dignan, 18 October 2003

The flagchart "Vlaggen in de haven van Amsterdam" (flags in the harbour of Amsterdam), no date, shows this flag as red with a castle-tower, on top of which a lion flying a banner with a saltire at the hoist, all yellow.
Jarig Bakker, 6 July 2004