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British shipping companies (Q, R)

Queen Steam Fishing Co Ltd.
Queenship Navigation Ltd.
RACAL Energy Resources Ltd.
Charles Radcliffe & Co.
Evan Thomas Radcliffe & Co.
Ragusa Steamship & Co., Ltd.
Franz Rahtkens & Co.
J. Raine & Son
Rankine Line, Ltd.
- Gibson Rankine Line
M.A. Ray & Sons

See also:

Queen Steam Fishing 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 Queen Steam Fishing Co Ltd., Grimsby. A white flag with a blue saltire and a red letter 'Q' in the centre. The flag is made of a wool and synthetic fibre bunting. It has a linen hoist and is machine sewn.
Jarig Bakker, 24 August 2004

image by Ivan Sache, 28 April 2021

The Queen Steam Fishing Company (QSFC) began as a family business in about 1900 owned by A. & R. Osborn. During the 1940s and 1950s the boats in its fishing fleet were named after castles. The QSFC specialized in steam trawling in the North Sea, but in 1956 went over to purse seine nets and changed the structure of its fishing fleet accordingly. QSFC bought the 'Crescent', the ‘Helen Jorgensen’ and the ‘Jane Jorgensen’(all purse seine netters) from Denmark. Additionally they commissioned a new purse seine netter from Scotland (they also owned eight steam trawlers at that time). In 1965 the Ross Group launched an offer to buy QSFC which was accepted. At that date the QSFC only owned two purse seine netters: the ‘Sandringham’ and the ‘Crescent II’. After the takeover the house flag of the QSFC ceased to be used.

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/338.html
National Maritime Museum (link to be updated)

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of Queen Steam Fishing Co., Ltd. (#1033, p. 86), as blue with a white "Q".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/51/
Ivan Sache, 28 April 2021

Queenship Navigation Ltd.

image by Jarig Bakker

Brown (1951) shows exactly the same flag as the Queen Steam Fishing Co. flag (but proportioned 2:3) for the Queenship Navigation Ltd., London.
Jarig Bakker, 24 August 2004

RACAL Energy Resources Ltd.

image by Jarig Bakker, 11 November 2005

RACAL Energy Resources Ltd., London - yellow flag, red rounded rectangle, white "RACAL".
Source: Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 11 November 2005

The company started off in the late1950s in electronics, manufacturing communications equipment based on a method for generating High Frequencies for long range communication invented by a South African electronics engineer. Their customers were mainly the navies of the West. The advent of satellite communications probably forced them to diversify.
Andries Burgers, 12 November 2005

Charles Radcliffe & Co.

image by Ivan Sache, 28 April 2021

Charles Radcliffe was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1862. His father was a stonemason who worked at the Penydarren Ironworks. He had two elder brothers, Henry and Daniel. Both his elder brothers had moved to Cardiff, where Henry worked for the shipowner, J.H.Bannning, and Daniel for another shipping company, Turnbulls of Whitby (Yorkshire) in their Cardiff offices. Charles also moved to Cardiff but joined the Civil Service, working for the Board of Trade, Marine Division.
In 1881 Henry Radcliffe had become a partner in the shipping company, Evan Thomas, Radcliffe, and had prospered, and when Evan Thomas died in 1891, both Charles and Daniel Radcliffe joined their brother for a short time, before setting up in business on their own in that same year, managing the Glamorgan Steamship Co, with one ship, the "Lady Armstrong". In 1892 they also took on the management of the "Peterston" (built in Whitby). In 1901 Charles Radcliffe purchased the "Craiglea" (his brother Daniel also being a member of his company) and over the ensuing years the Radcliffes ran some five ships ("Rochdale", "Snowdon", "Reresby", "Atherstone" and "Penstone"). The company lost some of its fleet as casualties of the First World War, but continued to be successful and in the early 1920s invested heavily in new ships ("Amblestone", "Coniston", "Rochdale", "Snowdon" and "Overstone"). In 1926 with the death of Charles Radcliffe the company closed down.

Charles Racliffe had also founded the Tydfil Engineering and Ship Repairing Co at Cardiff around 1892, once one of the largest ship repairing companies in the town.

https://www.angelfire.com/de/BobSanders/SHIPCO.html
Short histories of some Cardiff area shipping companies

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of Charles Radcliffe & Co. (#874, p. 78) as red with a white lozenge charged with a red "R&Co" monogram.
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/43/
Ivan Sache, 28 April 2021

Evan Thomas Radcliffe & Co.

image by Ivan Sache, 26 April 2021

The company was well known in tramp circles as the South Wales British India Line because of their original identical funnel colours. Evan Thomas came from Aberporth which had a substantial fleet of small sailing ships in the middle of the last century.

He then commanded steam tramps trading to the Baltic, Mediterranean, Black Sea and America. He then set up in business with a Merthyr Tydfil businessman Henry Radcliffe, who had gained his shipping experience with Watts, Milburn & Co., Newcastle and J.H. Anning of Cardiff. They ordered a new two masted schooner-rigged steam tramp from Palmers, Jarrow and named her "Gwenllian Thomas" after the daughter of Evan, who commanded her on her maiden voyage in June 1882. She was registered under a single ship limited liability company as were the first thirty tramps in the fleet. She loaded steam coal at Cardiff for Saint-Nazaire and then sailed in ballast for Bilbao to load iron ore for Cardiff, repeating this for a while then made three voyages to Gibraltar for copper ore from Huelva for Liverpool. She made occasional voyages on the ‘eternal triangle’ with grain homeward from the Black Sea.

Good profits were made by the first tramp and the fleet expanded to six by 1884. These were named after Evan’s daughters Kate and Ann and his only son Walter and his sister Mary. On the Radcliffe side W.I. Radcliffe was the only son and Clarissa his daughter. The first tramp with a ‘Llan’ prefix was "Llanberis" of 1890. The fleet had expanded to 15 tramps when Evan died on 14th November 1891 aged 49 years. Henry Radcliffe then took his younger brother Daniel aged 24 years into partnership with him after years experience with Anning and the Turnbull brothers. The Thomas family ceased to run the business.

https://www.shippingtandy.com/features/evan-thomas-radcliffe-co/
Shipping Today and Yesterday, 9 July 2019

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of
Evan Thomas Radcliffe & Co., also D. & C. Radcliffe (#644, p. 67) as red with a white anchor placed per bend and surrounded by the white letters "T" and "R".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/32/
Ivan Sache, 26 April 2021

Ragusa Steamship & Co., Ltd.

also M. Thomas & Son Shipping Co.

image by Ivan Sache, 3 May 2021

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of Ragusa Steamship & Co., Ltd., also M. Thomas & Son Shipping Co., Ltd. (#1714, p. 118), a Cardiff-based shipping company, as blue with the white letters "MT&Son" in the center.
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/#83
Ivan Sache, 3 May 2021

Franz Rahtkens & Co.

image by Ivan Sache, 26 April 2021

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of Franz Rahtkens & Co. (#670, p. 68), a Middlesbrough-based company, as white with two thin horizontal red stripes on top and bottom and the blue letters "F.R. & Co.".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/33/
Ivan Sache, 26 April 2021

J. Raine & Son

image by Ivan Sache, 27 April 2021

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of J. Raine & Son (#803, p. 75), a Sunderland-based company, as black with two horizontal red stripes.
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/40/
Ivan Sache, 27 April 2021

Rankine Line, Ltd.

image by Ivan Sache, 24 April 2021

Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of
Clanrye Steamship Co., Ltd. (#446, p. 58), a Newry-based company as white with a red "C".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/#23
Ivan Sache, 24 April 2021

Gibson Rankine Line

image by Jarig Bakker

The flagchart "Vlaggen in de haven van Amsterdam" (flags in the harbour of Amsterdam), no date shows the flag of the Gibson Rankine Line, Leith (Scotland) - white with a rope in TV-screen form around two masted flag in saltire. The flag to the hoist is the Gibson flag; the flag at fly-side maybe another Gibson flag, though the letters are hardly visible
Jarig Bakker, 6 July 2004

Gibson Rankine Line. The flag is not shown by any other source but the design of the crossed flags did appear on the funnels of craft involved on certain routes. The 2nd flag is that of Rankine Line Ltd. operated by James Rankine & Sons until taken over in 1920 and comprises 5 horizontal bands of red-white-blue-white-red with on the blue band the white letters "GR&SA". Sources vary as to whether the bands were equal with some showing the blue widest but then varying amongst themselves as to whether the red and white were equal or greater than one or the other.
Neale Rosanoski, 18 July 2005

British Shipping lines: continued