PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL STEAM NAVIGA TION COMPANY. This British steamship company, famil iarly known as the "P. & 0.," was founded by Messrs. Willcox & Anderson, a firm of London shipowners as the "Peninsular Serv ice" in 1834, changing its name in 1840. In 1842 the company embarked upon a mail contract service to India.
The route via Suez to India and Australia was for many years known as "the overland route." Caravans numbering more than 3,00o camels were needed to transport the cargo and mails of a single steamer between Suez and Cairo, but the merchandise car ried—indigo, tea, silk and precious metals—was of a kind and value to make this expensive form of transport practicable.
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1870 synchronised with the practical adoption of the compound engine as the motive power of the mercantile marine ; the elaborate organisation built up by the company for its overland route became almost valueless, and its fleet was, at the same time, rendered practically obsolete. The directors consequently revised the company's financial resources to create a new fleet, despite reduced, and at one time vanished, profit. Their difficulties were not lessened by the refusal of the post office to allow the mails to be transported through the canal.
While their rivals were reaping the full advantage of the new waterway, they were forced to continue the transit of mails by land between Alexandria and Suez; and this objection was not finally overcome until the year 1888.
The quarter of a century which followed was a period of con tinuous advance in the character and dimensions of the P. & 0. steamers. The steamers, "Naldera" and "Narkunda," marked another leap in size. They were projected in 1913, but the war prevented their being brought into normal service until the spring of 1920. These vessels are of 16,00o tons. In 1914 there was a fusion of the P. & 0. and British India companies, and Sir Thomas Sutherland, after thirty-four years' occupancy of the presidential chair, was succeeded by Lord Inchcape as chairman of the joint boards of the two companies.
The P. & 0. lost 17 steamers in the war, and these have all been replaced by larger vessels. The total tonnage of the P. & 0. fleet at Jan. I, 1928, was 572,333 tons gross. The paid-up capital of the company is over £7,600,000 and debenture stock has been issued to the extent of nearly £8,500,000. (L. C. M.)