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Macdonald, Hamilton was thus a normal shipping agency, and rapidly became known as P&O and BI. Passengers and travel agents soon came to deal direct. The agency handled all the day to day shore operations that the regular calls of its Owners cargo and passenger vessels demanded. This included arranging wharf and pier space, the handling of inward and outward freight, issuing bills of lading, the manifesting of freight and collection of dues; stevedoring, bunkering, victualling, attending to crew matters when the vessels were in port; paying bills; collecting fares and issuing its principals’ tickets, arranging and attending passenger embarkations, collection and delivery of passengers and crew mails. Each office, therefore, had its own accounts, freight (inward and outward, manifesting, P&O, BI, AUSN, Eastern & Australian Line), and passenger departments.

In October 1937 Macdonald, Hamilton announced that, as a result of P&O celebrating its centenary that year and as a gesture to Australia, the Armorial Bearings had been altered to reflect the Line’s involvement by the addition of a kangaroo to represent Australia.(1) The old arms, granted almost a century earlier, depicted Britain (with a seated ‘Britannia’); Egypt (a scene of camels and the pyramids); India (with an elephant); China (pagodas) and the line by an old ship with masts and tall funnel.(2) Both are illustrated below.

Expansion of Interests

The partnership expanded to embrace and invest in areas of wider interests, including engineering and salvage.(3) With regard to the latter, Macdonald, Hamilton was instrumental in setting up a subsidiary company, together with Gibbs Bright and Co, and William Crosby and Co. in late 1940 to oversee the salvaging of gold bullion from the Union Steamship Company’s Niagara, (4) which had sunk in the Tasman Sea off Auckland in 1940 after hitting a German mine. This company was called United Salvage Pty. Ltd., and had an Australian diving legend, Diver Johnny Johnson, as the chief diver, his brother Bill, a diver in the Royal Australian Navy, and Captain John Williams, formerly a seagoing officer of AUSN, as Directors. (5)

Macdonald, Hamilton organised AUSN’s stevedoring as well as that for shipping concerns and agents in other ports by setting up jointly owned companies.The Newcastle Stevedoring, Tug and Lighterage Co. and the Adelaide Stevedoring Company for example, were two such companies in which MH had a quarter share.(6) In Fremantle MH was in partnership with Elder Smith & Co. while in Melbourne Macdonald, Hamilton set up United Stevedoring, again, in conjunction with Gibbs Bright and William Crosby. Macdonald, Hamilton made similar arrangements in Sydney, Brisbane and Townsville.(7) MH therefore had branch offices in the main Australian ports where it acted as P&O & BI Owners’ Agents. Though Macdonald, Hamilton were in Adelaide it was not an agency office, for here the appointed port agents for P&O were Elder, Smith and Company Limited, while Birt Elders had the agencies around Australia for two other companies in the P&O Group, not represented by MH, New Zealand Shipping and Federal Steam Navigation Companies.(8)

Imperceptibly, however, MH became more involved with the P&O agency than that of AUSN so that the latter appeared to become less important. Macdonald, Hamilton were active with its partners in other marine related activities, for example Marine Engineers Fleet Forge (with William Crosby, agents for Ellerman & Bucknall ‘City’ ships; Gibbs Bright, agents for Port Line, Captain [later Sir] John Williams as shareholders); United Ship Salvage, previously referred to, Fleetways Car Transporters, and United Ship Services (ship repairing, fitting out and dunnage), the latter three companies having the same shareholders.(9)

Besides its public face as a passenger agency, MH was managing AUSN’s fleet of tugs, Carlock, Coringa, Fearless, Forceful, and Naldham, the first three tugs being built on the Clyde. Coringa was originally built for the British India and Queensland Agency in 1913, but was transferred to AUSN’s flag under Macdonald, Hamilton when the former agency went into voluntary liquidation upon the formation of MH, as mentioned earlier. The funnels were painted black with two white bands at the top, reflecting the influence of BI and hence Inchcape

AUSN did purchase a Government owned vessel the Balook and renamed her Caloundra and were to place an order for another. She would be built in Brisbane and operate with Caloundra. Their older and only passenger ship Ormiston, was now returned to AUSN, so enabling the company to get back into the coastal trade once more. Ormiston was docked for upgrading and it was found that more work was required to get her ready for trading(16). In September 1951 a fire occurred in one of her insulating spaces which was quickly put out, but then two weeks later she suffered another fire. By the time she was finished the final cost of her overhaul was £262,000 (Australian); though £50,000 had been available for her refurbishment, the additional cost of over £200,000 was staggering. McKellar quotes Bourne, the then Chairman of Directors in a letter to Rickards (one of the Partners), that the whole affair was ‘nothing less than a major disaster’.(17)

MH, (as AUSN) was still in the pool of coastal companies. (Associated Steamship Owners had been reconstituted in 1947 after having been suspended in 1941 after the requisition of the coastal ships) The pre-war association saw its members losing revenue which was not the original aim of the association of course. With the new contract in 1947, there were still question marks over the viability of the rekindled organisation. AUSN was not at all confident that it would prove any more viable than the former, especially in view of the escalating operating costs.(18) The other companies vessels had been returned to peacetime service, and hence to the pool and these were, Adelaide Steam’s Manoora, Tasmanian Steamers Westralia, Huddart Parker’s Wanganella, McIlwraith McEacharn’s Kanimbla, Melbourne Steamship’s Duntroon, and Union Steamship’s Taroona.(19)

With Ormiston re-furbished she was able to be kept on the coastal passenger run for a while longer, carrying passengers, though diminished in number, but she was running at a loss. This could not continue so she was put up for sale and went to Greek interests and departed for the last time on 15th February 1955. The sale of Ormiston meant that AUSN, and hence Macdonald, Hamilton, were no longer involved with coastal passenger sevices.(20) Though there were still the four cargo vessels even these could not compete and by 1960 only one vessel, Corinda, was left and she too was sold to Hong Kong interests in March 1961 so ending AUSN as a shipping company.(21) Inroads continued to be made by rail, road and now air travel. Whitlam points to the fact that the Trans-Continental Railway, had led to reductions in shipping passenger traffic which was less than half of pre-war numbers.(22) This was repeated in other states and of course resulted in lower earnings for the shipping companies and agencies.

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Miscellaneous post-war details can be seen in the
Macdonald Hamilton and Company Pty. Ltd
pages, by clicking on the link below.

History of
Macdonald, Hamilton and Co.
(Introduction)