Abstract
The invention and subsequent development of the steamship represents a great watershed in maritime transport and humankind’s relationship with the sea. For the first time, vessels were not at the mercy of wind or tide and this, together with the ability to make or leave port at will, permitted scheduled services. These, to a considerable degree, overcame the uncertainties that previously had inevitably accompanied maritime voyages. Over time all elements of shipping — vessels, labour, finance — were transformed and likewise shipbuilding, the port industry and associated shipping services. Steam together with changes in construction materials — from wood to iron and later steel — along with later advances in communications and transport technology, the telegraph and the railway, created a ‘new world of shipping’.1 Such changes contributed to the integration of the world economy.
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Notes
D. M. Williams (ed.) (1997) The World of Shipping ( Aldershot: Ashgate), pp. ix–xxvi.
Y. Kaukiainen (2008) ‘The Transition from Sail to Steam–Growth and Crisis During a Technological Change’, in L. U. Scholl and D. M. Williams (eds) Crisis and Transition; Maritime Sectors in the North Sea Region, 1790–1940 ( Bremen: H. M. Hauchshild ), p. 62.
G. R. Porter (1838) The Progress of the Nation in its Various Social and Economical Relations, from the Beginning of the 19th Century to the Present Time ( London: Charles Knight & Co. ), p. 44.
J. S. Russell (1841) The Nature, Properties, and Applications of Steam, and on Steam Navigation (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black), p. 171. The maritime aspects are covered in pp. 170–316.
W. S. Lindsay (1874) History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce, vol. IV ( London: Sampson Low ).
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A view to be echoed two decades later in Ville’s study: Simon P. Ville (1990) Transport and the Development of the European Economy, 1750–1918 ( Basingstoke: Macmillan ), p. 53
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R. Gardiner (1993) ‘Preface’, in R. Gardiner and B. Greenhill (eds) The Advent of Steam. The Merchant Steamship before 1900 ( London: Conway ), p. 6.
A good introduction to the Trade and Navigation Accounts is to be found in D.J. Starkey (1999) ‘Introduction’, in D. J. Starkey (1999) (ed.) Shipping Movements in the Ports of the United Kingdom, 1871–1913, A Statistical Profile ( Exeter: University of Exeter Press), pp. xi–xxxi.
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A. R. M. Lower (1973) Great Britain’s Woodyard, British America and the Timber Trade ( Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press).
D. M. Williams (1988) ‘The Rise of United States merchant shipping on the North Atlantic, 1800–1850s: the British perception and response’, in C. G. Reynolds (ed.) Global Crossroads and the American Seas ( Montana: International Commission for Maritime History ), pp. 67–84.
R. Perren (1978) The Meat Trade in Britain, 1840–1914 ( London: Routledge ).
A. J. Villiers (1971) The War with Cape Horn ( London: Hodder & Stoughton).
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© 2012 David M. Williams and John Armstrong
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Williams, D.M., Armstrong, J. (2012). An Appraisal of the Progress of the Steamship in the Nineteenth Century. In: Harlaftis, G., Tenold, S., Valdaliso, J.M. (eds) The World’s Key Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137003751_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137003751_4
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