With the foundation of the new company the Board resolved to make temporary arrangements concerning the appointment of agents in Australia. The Brisbane Agents were to be B I and Q A with two staff to be appointed from AUSN’s staff in special charge. The Rockhampton agent would be - Mr. Macdonald of BI and QA, Cooktown, an employee of BI and QA, and at Other Ports - Agents AUSN. (1) These arrangements being confirmed, it was left to BI and QA, to appoint other agencies as the need arose subject to any further instructions from London.

The Board were informed that the now considerable fleet of steamers had provisionally been insured for the twelve months from the date of their being taken over (by the purchaser) at 6 guineas per cent.(2) The insured fleet consisted of 22 vessels each of which were insured from £4,000 to £26,000 making in total £731,500. Three other vessels, barges, hulks and other craft were not insured. At a meeting, a week later, it was decided to re-adjust the insurance value to add 50% more than that stated in the purchase agreement.(3)

With ASN now part of AUSN it was decided that QSS should also be amalgamated into this new company, for which it would be necessary for BI and QA to sell ASN to AUSN. On 27th April 1887 a letter was sent to BI and QA in Sydney informing them that ASN and all its assets had been sold by London to the Australasian United Steam Navigation Company.(4) The letter was signed by Mackinnon Mackenzie (of Calcutta), Gray Dawes and Wm. Denny Bros. The shareholders having voted for the amalgamation QSS ceased to exist after 6 years of trading. As at 25th April 1887 QSS had a total of ten steamers valued at £215,221.15.7d (5) and on 23rd May that year the Minutes recorded that ‘QSS had been wound up and sold to AUSN’(6)

(1) AUSN Minute Book, 21st March 1887.
(2) Ibid
(3) Ibid
(4) Ibid 27th April 1887
(5) AUSN Minute Book, 27th April 1887. Guildhall Library, London, Ms 27110-1 1887-
(6) Ibid 23rd May 1887

Another factor was now coming into play which caused the shipping companies, indeed forced them, into reducing their fares considerably. This was the coming of the railways between Sydney and Brisbane, with the railway bridge over the Hawkesbury River being opened for traffic in May 1889. This resulted in not only a big reduction of journey times, as the railway could now take the direct route instead of the much longer round-about route, but it also meant that Newcastle lost much of its coastal traffic from Sydney, though it still reigned supreme in the NSW coal trade.(7) The line between Brisbane and Bundaberg opened in July the same year leading to an even bigger drop in the rail fares between Sydney and Brisbane, however the fares between the two cities by sea were already below those of the railways. In order to compete the shipping companies had to continue keeping their fares below that of the railways. Passenger fares suffered as did freight rates which, by the year 1892, had fallen to 4/- per ton between Melbourne and Sydney whilst stiff competition from the railway service between Brisbane and Bundaberg resulted in substantial falling off of trade.(8)

(7). Peter J. Rimmer ‘The Search For Spatial Regularities in the Development of Australian Seaports 1861-1961/2’ in Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, Vol.49, No. 1 (1967), 51
(8) Pixley, ‘The History of the A.U.S.N.Co.Ltd’ 990

History of
Macdonald, Hamilton and Co.
(Introduction)