British shipping companies (E)

Last modified: 2021-05-29 by rob raeside
Keywords: esso | jre | eagle (black) | lion (yellow) | etc | et | e&f | e&b | ellerman | ea | egc | el | esl |
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• English & Co.
• Ensign Express Shipping Ltd.
• Eskside Steam Shipping Co., Ltd.
• Essex Line, Limited (Meldrum & Swinson)
• Esso Transportation Co., Ltd
• F.T. Everard & Co.
• Euroasia Container Line
• European & Brazilian Shipping Co., Ltd.
• European Gas Company, Limited
• Euxine Shipping Co. Ltd.

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

English & Co.

image by Ivan Sache, 25 April 2021

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of
English & Co. (#537, p. 62), a Middlesbrough-based company, as white with a blue border and the blue letters "E.&C°.".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/#27
Ivan Sache, 25 April 2021

Ensign Express Shipping Ltd.

image by Jarig Bakker, 10 December 2005

Ensign Express Shipping Ltd., Ramsgate - vertical blue-white-blue, in center black italic "EE".
Source: Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 10 December 2005

Eskside Steam Shipping Co., Ltd.

image by Ivan Sache, 25 April 2021

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of
Eskside Steam Shipping Co., Ltd. (#613, p. 66), a Whitby-based company, as white with the ruins of Whitby Abbey cantonned with the black letters "E", "S", "S" and "C".

https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/31/

The ruins of Whitby Abbey are among the most celebrated sights of North Yorkshire. The first monastery here, founded in about 657, became one of the most important religious centres in the Anglo-Saxon world. In 664 it was the setting for the Synod of Whitby, a landmark in the history of the Church in England. The headland is now dominated by the shell of the 13th-century church of the Benedictine abbey founded after the Norman Conquest.

In 627 the Anglian King of Northumbria, Edwin, converted to Christianity and was baptised by the Roman missionary St Paulinus. The monastery at Streaneshalch was founded in about 657 by Hild (614–80), daughter of an Anglian nobleman, with the support of Oswiu (d.670), then ruler of Anglian Northumbria. Streaneshalch seems to have been of particular importance to the Northumbrian royal family, as a number of its members were buried there. It was during Hild’s rule that the layman Cædmon lived at Streaneshalch, the first named poet in the English language.
The documentary sources only give a limited account of Streaneshalch’s history, but the most important event, the Synod of Whitby in 664, was described in some detail by Bede.[7] Here, the rivalry between the two strands of Christianity in England, the Celtic and the Roman, came to a head. Eventually King Oswiu decided that the Roman side should prevail, and the Pope’s authority was gradually established over the Church in the British Isles.

The Anglian town and monastery were abandoned at some point in the 9th century. We do not know exactly when or how this happened, but it was probably as a result of raids by Vikings from Denmark, followed by permanent Danish settlement.
In about 1078 a monk called Reinfrid founded a new monastic community at Whitby. At a very early stage in its history this community split and the two parts each developed into a fully fledged Benedictine monastery: one on the headland at Whitby and the other at St Mary’s Abbey, York.
The Benedictine monastery initially probably had timber buildings or reused the Anglian ruins on the headland. About 1100 a stone church and conventional buildings were built in the Romanesque style, as well as a large parish church close by.
On the 13th century the monastery church was rebuilt in the Gothic style. There were doubtless extensive monastic buildings south of the abbey church, but they were almost completely demolished after the abbey’s suppression in 1539.

After the Suppression Sir Richard Cholmley (d.1578) bought the abbey’s buildings and the core of its estates. The Cholmley family adapted part of the abbot's lodgings into a house. Originally from Cheshire, they had already become major landowners in Yorkshire. Sir Hugh Cholmley I (1600–1657) played a notable part in the Civil War (1642–1651), defending Scarborough Castle for the king before surrendering it in 1645, after which Parliamentarian troops captured and looted the Abbey House at Whitby. In the 18th century the Cholmleys moved away, abandoning the Abbey House.

From the early 19th century Whitby became a popular seaside resort, with new terraces laid out on the West Cliff. The abbey ruins became a tourist destination, and rising interest in the site was recorded in numerous engravings and paintings. The publication of Bram Stoker’s novel "Dracula" in 1897 gave Whitby a major literary association, ensuring that the sinister count would forever be associated with the town.
Ownership of the abbey ruins passed to the Strickland family, who were descendants of the Cholmleys. In 1914 the German High Seas Fleet shelled Whitby and struck the abbey ruins, causing considerable damage to the west front, though this was later repaired. In 1920 the Strickland family handed the abbey over to the Ministry of Works, and over the following decade Sir Charles Peers directed major excavations at the site, uncovering evidence of the Anglian settlement here.

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/whitby-abbey/history-and-stories/history
English Heritage
Ivan Sache, 25 April 2021

Based on Wedge 1926 Essex Line, Limited (Meldrum & Swinson), London - white flag with blue Maltese cross, charged with a blue rectangle with "EL" in white.
Jarig Bakker, 16 December 2004

Esso Transportation Co., Ltd

image by Jarig Bakker

Esso Transportation Co., Ltd (also Esso Petroleum Co., Ltd., and practically all affiliates of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey) - White ground; blue ellipse in center containing Esso in red letters.
Jarig Bakker, 20 October 2003

Esso Transportation Co. Ltd. An unusual variation and such sketches appear in the files of E.P. Harnack (All About Ships & Shipping). The company itself is shown by Lloyds in the 1950s but the regular sources of that period, Stewart and Brown, show it using the common group flag of white with the red legend "Esso" within a blue oval ring [see the USA Exxon page for the group detail]. The main British shipping company of the group was Esso Petroleum Co. Ltd. which changed its name in 1951 from Anglo-American Oil Co. Ltd. with its use of the flag with the oval ring being confirmed on the National Maritime Museum website though I note that in the accompanying written description they mistakenly describe the lettering as being "red within a blue oval" instead of "red within a blue oval ring". The use of the new flag is confirmed officially by a letter from Esso Transportation Co. Ltd., dated 30.11.1951 to E.P. Harnack, stating that it was also used by Esso Petroleum Co. Ltd. and most of the affiliates of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. They also enclose the official drawings with measurements etc. dated October 1946 and ironically it may well have been these which caused the initial problem [certainly Harnark has interpreted it wrongly] as they talk of the colours as being white for the ground, red for the letters and blue for the ellipse, just as does the NMM, and then give measurements including both for the ellipse and the ellipse band, but faced  with the actual flag of Esso Petroleum Co. Ltd. and funnel markings from photos it becomes clear that they really meant the ellipse band to be blue and the field inside the ellipse to be white with the red letters thereon.
Neale Rosanoski, 31 May 2005
 

image by Ivan Sache, 17 March 2004

The flag is quartered per saltire red and white.

The flag of F.T. Everard is like that of the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation, one of the major High Street banks in the UK, with quarters reversed.
Ron Lahav, 17 March 2004

F.T. Everard has no association with the Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation. It is an international and multinational private company based in Britain.
Mike Nancollas, 2 September 2005

The Swire group also has a connection with Hong Kong and a similar flag, differing only by a vertical blue stripe in the middle of the flag. See this page for reference.
Ivan Sache, 18 March 2004

Euroasia Container Line

Euroasia Container Line, a service begun in 1985 by the international Contship Group which is based in U.K.
Neale Rosanoski, 18 April 2005

To the best of my knowledge the flag was black, with the wavy lines being white-red-white. Euroasia Container Line, based at Ipswich like the other companies in the Contship group, was a joint venture of Contship Deutschland and Neptune Orient Lines of Singapore. The black white and red are, of course, the old German colours. The funnel of ships sailing for this company, identical to the houseflag, was reported on 22.2.86 in the Suez Canal, and at Hamburg in 30.4.87, the latter accompanied by the house flag which I have described.
J.L. Loughran, 25 August 2009

Variant with blue and yellow

image by Jorge Candeias, 07 January 1998

I cannot explain the version by Jorge, unless the partners in the joint version changed, or a change was later made to the more modern German colours.
J.L. Loughran, 25 August 2009

A flag drawing shown (without yellow, surely due to a limited palette) on p. 30 of a special magazine issue "Antwerp: The European solution for 1992" supplementary to 'Lloyd', Antwerp maritime newspaper, 14 Sep 1987.

Caption: "Euroasia container line IPSWICH
AN INDEPENDENT SERVICE BOMBAY - KARACHI".
Jan Mertens, 15 March 2010

European & Brazilian Shipping Co., Ltd.

(Petersen & Co., Ltd.)

image by Ivan Sache, 29 April 2021

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of the European & Brazilian Shipping Co., Ltd. (Petersen & Co., Ltd.) (#1175, p. 92), a London-based company, as swallow-tailed, with a red cross superimposed by a red square inscribing a white "P".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/#57
Ivan Sache, 29 April 2021

European Gas Company, Limited

image by Jarig Bakker

Source: Brown's Flags and Funnels [Wedge 1926]

European Gas Company, Limited (H.A. Brightman), North Shields - white flag, "E.G.C." in red. North Shields is a suburb of Newcastle.
Jarig Bakker, 5 February 2005

Euxine Shipping Co. Ltd.

image by Jarig Bakker, based on the website of the National Maritime Museum.

From the website of the National Maritime Museum, "the house flag of the Euxine Shipping Co. Ltd., London. A rectangular white swallow-tailed burgee with a red, white and blue stripe across the centre. The flag is made of a wool and synthetic fibre bunting. It has a cotton hoist and is machine sewn. A rope and toggle is attached."
Jarig Bakker, 12 August 2004

     images by Rob Raeside

Euxine Shipping Co. Ltd. There may have been a subsequent change as Stewart and Brown from 1953 to 1978 show the flag as being a tapered swallowtail. The Brown editions of 1951 and 1958 show a similar format other than that in that the red and blue bands are separated by an equal width of white field but Stewart 1953-1963 and then Brown 1978 show narrower bands well apart with the shape of the flag also differing as a result.
Neale Rosanoski, 31 May 2005

British Shipping lines: continued