White Star Line

It was within the circles of the massive tides of immigrants flowing from Europe to North America that the White Star Line aimed to be revered by, as throughout the company's full history they regularly strived to provide passage for steerage passengers which greatly exceeded that seen with other shipping lines. With the Oceanic class, one of the most notable developments in steerage accommodations was the division of steerage at opposite ends of the vessels, with single men being berthed forward, and single women and families berthed aft, with later developments allowing married couples berths aft as well.

White Star's entry into the trans-Atlantic passenger market in the spring of 1871 got off to a rocky start. When Oceanic sailed on her maiden voyage on 2 March, she departed Liverpool with only 64 passengers aboard, from whence she was expected to make port at Queenstown the following day to pick up more passengers before proceeding to New York. However, before she had cleared the Welsh coast her bearings overheated off Holyhead and she was forced to return for repairs. She resumed her crossing on 17 March and ended up not completing the crossing to New York until 28 March. However, upon her arrival in New York, she drew considerable attention, as by the time she departed on her return crossing to Liverpool on 15 April, some 50,000 spectators had looked her over. White Star's troubles with their first ship were short lived and Oceanic's second crossing to New York was more successful. She departed Liverpool on 11 May and arrived in New York on 23 May with 407 passengers aboard.

In the eighteen months that followed, the five remaining ships were completed, and one by one, joined her on the North Atlantic run. Atlantic sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool on 8 June without incident. However, later that summer another problem surfaced which posed a threat to public opinion of the company. Of the six ships, the names originally selected for the third and sixth ships of the class had initially been Pacific and Arctic, which when mentioned in the press appeared alongside references to two ships of the same names which had belonged to the now defunct Collins Line, both of which were lost at sea with large losses of life. In the cases of those ships, both of which had been wooden-hulled paddle steamers, Arctic had foundered off the coast of Newfoundland in September 1854 after colliding with another ship, resulting in the loss of over 300 lives, while Pacific vanished with 186 people on board in January 1856. As a result, White Star made arrangements to change the names of these two ships. The third ship, which had been launched as Pacific on 8 March 1871 was renamed Baltic prior to its completion and the keel of the sixth vessel, which had just been laid down at Harland & Wolff and dubbed Arctic, was renamed Celtic prior to her launch.

The fourth vessel of the Oceanic class, Republic, sailed on her maiden voyage on 1 February 1872, around which time modifications were being made to the last two ships still under construction. Alterations in their designs called for their hulls to be extended in length by 17 ft (5.2 m), which also increased their tonnage. Adriatic entered service on 11 April 1872, followed by Celtic six months later on 24 October. These ships began their careers with notable success. Adriatic, after barely a month in service, became the first White Star ship to capture the Blue Riband, having completed a record westbound crossing in 7 days, 23 hours and 17 minutes at an average speed of 14.53 knots (26.91 km/h; 16.72 mph). In January 1873, Baltic became the first of the line to capture the Blue Riband for an eastbound crossing, having completed a return trip to Liverpool in 7 days, 20 hours and 9 minutes at an average speed of 15.09 knots (27.95 km/h; 17.37 mph).

Hesitation and disaster

The company did not focus only on the North Atlantic. In 1871, it purchased two ships while they were under construction, Asiatic and Tropic. They were initially placed on the route to India via the Suez Canal, but this route proved to be unprofitable. Once the six Oceanic-class ships were in service, and five sufficient for a weekly service, Ismay decided to move Republic, accompanied by Asiatic, Tropic and two recently purchased liners, Gaelic and Belgic, onto the route to South America, in order to compete with the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. Although Republic was successful in her only crossing on this route, she was quickly withdrawn, and her fellow liners gradually suffered the same fate. The route remained however, serviced by the company's sailboats, whose management returned to William Imrie, and was quickly dedicated to a separate company, the North Western Shipping Company.

The first substantial loss for the company came only four years after its founding, with the sinking of the SS Atlantic and the loss of 535 lives near Halifax, Nova Scotia on 31 March 1873. While en route to New York from Liverpool amidst a vicious storm, Atlantic attempted to make port at Halifax when a concern arose that the ship would run out of coal before reaching New York. However, when attempting to enter Halifax, she ran aground on the rocks and sank in shallow waters. Despite being so close to shore, a majority of those onboard drowned, with 585 of the 952 onboard perishing. White Star found itself being accused of not having supplied enough coal to the ship, while the captain was sanctioned for having acted in an irresponsible manner. The crew were blamed for serious navigational errors by the Canadian Inquiry, although a British Board of Trade investigation cleared the company of all extreme wrongdoing. Although Atlantic was quickly erased from the advertisements of the White Star Line, she was not forgotten. With a personal contribution from Ismay, the company financed the maintenance of the graves of the victims and, in 1915, it contributed to the construction of a monument dedicated to the victims. In order to preserve the financial health of the company, Asiatic and Tropic were immediately sold.

Records and diversification (1874–1899)

In the wake of the Atlantic disaster, the White Star Line continued to expand its fleet. Gaelic and Belgic joined the five Oceanic-class liners, and the company's success continued to grow. However, rival companies quickly caught up: Cunard placed Botnia and Scythia into service, while the Inman Line ordered City of Brussels and Montana and Dakota entered service with the Guion Line. All were built in response to White Star's ground breaking liners and were thus larger.

In response, White Star ordered two new steamers from Harland & Wolff, both of which were designed as considerably larger, two-funnelled versions of the Oceanic-class steamers. These two ships measured 455 ft (139 m) in length and 45 ft (14 m) in width, with a gross tonnage of roughly 5,000 tons and with engines of similar design as seen in the earlier ships, with the exception of greater horsepower, capable of driving their single screws at speeds of up to 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). Passenger capacity was also increased, with the two vessels able to carry 200 saloon passengers and 1,500 steerage passengers. The first of the pair, which had initially been named Hellenic, was launched as Britannic on 3 February 1874 and departed on her maiden voyage to New York on 25 June. Her sister Germanic (1874) was launched on 15 July 1874, but due to complications in her construction, she did not enter service until 20 May 1875. With the introduction of these new ships, Oceanic was declared surplus and, in the spring of 1875, was chartered to one of White Star's subsidiaries, the Occidental & Oriental Shipping company, under which she operated their trans-Pacific route between San Francisco, Yokohama and Hong Kong until her retirement in 1895. The two new steamers proved immensely popular on the North Atlantic run, and both would end up capturing the Blue Riband on two eastbound and three westbound crossings within a two-year period. Germanic captured the westbound record in August 1875, then captured the eastbound record in February 1876, while Britannic captured both records within less than two months of each other, beating the westbound record in November and the eastbound record in December. Germanic captured the westbound record for the last time in April 1877. During that same year, the company began sharing a postal agreement with the Cunard Line, allowing its ships' names to be prefixed with 'RMS' ('Royal Mail Ship').

Pacific and Indian Oceans

The arrival of the two new liners created a surplus of ships on the North Atlantic route for the White Star Line. At the same time, George Bradbury, president of the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company, a company formed in 1874 to compete with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, enlisted the help of Thomas Ismay in setting up his new service. The White Star Line responded by lending the new company Oceanic, which had become a surplus ship, as well as Gaelic and Belgic. This charter initiative proved profitable, with Oceanic remaining on the San Francisco – Hong Kong route for twenty years. New ships were gradually assigned to this contract in the 1880s, such as Arabic in 1881, and the new Belgic (1885) and Gaelic (1885) in 1885. The partnership continued until 1906, when White Star withdrew Coptic from the Pacific route. The Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company disappeared two years later in the face of competition from the new ships of the Pacific Mail Company.

In 1882, the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line was founded, and it decided to open a route to New Zealand, but lacked experience. The White Star Line therefore proposed to provide a joint service, which started in 1884 with Coptic, Doric, and Ionic (1883) supplied by White Star, with Shaw, Savill & Albion providing Arawa and Tainui. The ships called at Australia on the outward journey, and through the Panama Canal on the return trip. From 1902, more ships were added to this joint service: Athenic, Corinthic and the second Ionic (1902), which were operated until the 1930s. The link between the two companies persisted even after the disappearance of the White Star Line, with the Shaw Savill & Albion Line continuing to use White Star's nomenclature and giving its ships names ending in -ic.

The diversification of the company's activities also required an update of its equipment. While the sailing ships gradually disappeared, the company acquired a new type of cargo ship, intended for the transport of live cattle. The first of these was Cufic, which entered service in 1888, followed a year later by Runic. Others, notably the sister ships Bovic and Naronic, followed in the 1890s. The latter became famous when, less than a year after her maiden voyage, she mysteriously disappeared with everyone aboard. Two other cattle carriers, Cevic and Georgic, were built in 1894 and 1895 respectively, before the company abandoned this type of business.

Teutonic and Majestic

Over the next 12 years, White Star focused their attention on other matters of business, expanding their services with the introduction of several cargo and livestock carriers on the North Atlantic as well as establishing a small but lucrative passenger and cargo service to New Zealand. By 1887 however, Britannic and Germanic and the four remaining Oceanic-class liners had aged significantly and were now being outpaced in speed and comfort by newer ships brought into service by White Star's competitors, in particular City of New York and City of Paris. In an effort to outdo their competitors, White Star began making plans to put two new liners into service which would prove to be exceptionally innovative in design for the time, Teutonic and Majestic. In order to build these new ships, Thomas Ismay made arrangements with the British Government under which in exchange for financial support from the British government, the two new ships would be designed not only as passenger liners, but also as armed merchant cruisers which could be requisitioned by the Royal Navy in times of war. Measuring 565 ft (172 m) in length and 57 ft (17 m) in width and with a gross tonnage of just under 10,000 tons, the new liners would be nearly twice the size of Britannic and Germanic. Additionally, owing to the arrangement with the British Government, Teutonic and Majestic were the first White Star liners to be built with twin screws, powered by triple expansion engines capable of driving the ships at speeds of up to 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).

All three ships became troop carriers under the auspices of the Minister of Shipping during the First World War, carrying the New Zealand Expeditionary Force to Europe and the Middle East. After the war they returned to the joint service with White Star/Shaw Savill, but the route was no longer in such demand or so profitable, and White Star was becoming more focused on its core Atlantic service between Southampton and New York and increasingly looking to wind down the Australia Run, the Atlantic services to Boston and Canada and the New Zealand service. In 1928 Athenic was sold to a Norwegian firm and converted into a whaling factory ship. In 1929 Corinthic was re-fitted to have single third/tourist class accommodation only, and she was sold for scrap in 1931. Only Ionic was still in service when White Star and Cunard merged in 1934, at which point Ionic on the New Zealand run was sold on to Shaw, Savill & Albion along with Ceramic on the Australian service. The elderly liner was scrapped in 1936.