The Lavender Ladies

"The Castles to the Cape"

CELEBRATING THE MAILSHIPS OF UNION-CASTLE LINE


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The Union Steamship Co., London (Est. 1857) + The Castle Mail Packet Co., London (Est. 1862)

merged in 1900 to form

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The Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company Limited, London (Est. 1900)

(Website Est. 2010)

RETURN TO THE HOMEPAGE                                                                                                                                                                                                           THE CASTLES TO THE CAPE
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Introduction

Welcome to our "The Lavender Ladies" website celebrating the great ocean liners of the Union-Castle Line. 

The Union-Castle Line was founded in 1900 by the merger (under the guidance of Sir Donald Currie) of the Union Steamship Company and the Castle Mail Packet Company. These two rivals had battled for supremacy on the mailship route from Britain to South Africa for over 40 years previously. The full name of the new merged company was the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company Limited.

From 1900 until 1977, Union-Castle Line's familar , lavender-hulled ships carried the goods and passengers of the British Empire to and from its South African colony. "The Mailships" as they became known, earned a legendary reputation for reliability and excellence, always attracting the attention of the rich and famous, along with a loyal following of regular passengers who often booked the same cabin, on the same ship, year after year. For many years their regular sailing time from Southampton was "Every Thursday at 4 o'clock", while every Friday another of the fleet would dock in Southampton.

Their principal express mailship route ran from Southampton to South Africa via Las Palmas in the Canary Islands until 1977. They also ran intermediate services as well. The company was also noted for its famous Round Africa service which operated from 1922 to 1962.

In 1911 Union-Castle Line became part of the Royal Mail Line's Group. In 1922 the famous "Round Africa" service was inaugurated. In 1932 the Royal Mail Line's Group ran into financial difficulties and eventually collapsed, as a result Union-Castle Line once again re-emerged as an independent company.

In 1955 Union-Castle Line became part of the British & Commonwealth Shipping Group. In 1962 an era came to an end with the closure of the renowned "Round Africa" service which had been operating since 1922.

In 1965 the British & Commonwealth Group (parent company of Union-Castle Line and Clan Line) was one of the British shipping companies, along with Alfred Holt's Ocean Steamship Co., Furness Withy Group, and P&O Group, that was involved in setting up Overseas Containers Ltd and later P&O became the sole owner of this container shipping company turning it into P&O Containers Ltd and the partner shipping company names disappeared.

In 1966 the flagship Mailship service to South Africa became a joint operation with the South Africa Marine Corporation (Safmarine). Pretoria Castle and Transvaal Castle were transferred to Safmarine and renamed S.A. Oranje and S.A. Vaal respectively and they were repainted in Safmarine livery.

Sadly by the 1970s the days of the passenger liner and the regular mail services by sea were numbered due to air competition, freight containerisation and soaring fuel costs. In October 1973 the British & Commonwealth Group and Safmarine combined their freight operations under the name International Liner Services Ltd. In 1977 the RMS Windsor Castle made the final express mailship voyage from Southampton to South Africa and return. On the 24th October 1977 the Southampton Castle arrived back in Southampton after her final voyage from South Africa and finally closed the historic mail service that had lasted 120 years. 

In 1982 International Liner Services Ltd (formed in 1973 by combining the operations of British & Commonwealth Group and Safmarine) withdrew from shipping after failing to compete against air travel. By 1986 British & Commonwealth had disposed of their last ship - having fully diversified into other fields of activity such as financial services, aviation, hotels, commodity trading and office equipment. The British & Commonweath Group was a subsidiary of Caledonia Investments PLC, the Cayzer family holding company. In October 1987 Caledonia sold their holding in the British & Commonwealth Group. In 1990 the British & Commonwealth Group collapsed with debts of over £1.5 billion.

In 1999, the Union-Castle Line name was briefly revived for an advertised "Round Africa" sailing on the old Union-Castle route using P&O Line's Victoria (British-built former Kungsholm). 

In 2005 the final chapter in the story of Union-Castle Line came to a close when the last surviving former Union-Castle mailship, the former Windsor Castle, arrived at Alang, India for scrapping after many years laid up in Greece. It was the end of a glorious era of ocean travel.



MENU:

Sir Donald Currie (1825 - 1909)

The Currie Cup (Est. 1892)
The Story of Union-Castle Line (Est. 1900)

The Cape Mail service (1900 - 1977)

The Round Africa service (1922 - 1962)

Union Castle Line at War

British & Commonwealth Shipping Group
(1955 - 1990)

Wellington Hospital, London

Union-Castle Travel (Est. 1947)

The Union-Castle Terminal
(Berth 102, Southampton Western Docks)

"The Union-Castle Express" Boat Train
(London Waterloo - Southampton Docks)

"The Blue Train" Boat Train
(Johannesburg - Kimberley - Cape Town)

"The Rhodesia Express" Boat Train
(Bulawayo - Cape Town)

The Mount Nelson Hotel, Cape Town

The San Antonio Hotel, Lanzarote

The Reid's Hotel, Madeira

THE MAILSHIPS:

SS Scot (1891)

RMS Arundel Castle (1921)

RMS Carnarvon Castle (1926)

RMMV Stirling Castle (1936)

RMMV Athlone Castle (1936)

RMS Dunnottar Castle (1936)

RMMV Capetown Castle (1938)

RMS Edinburgh Castle (1947)

RMS Pretoria Castle (1948)

RMS Kenya Castle (1951)

RMS Pendennis Castle (1958)

RMS Windsor Castle (1960)

RMS Transvaal Castle (1961)

RMS Southampton Castle (1965)

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Union-Castle Line

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British & Commonwealth Shipping Group


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Union Castle Line         |         Clan Line        |          Bullard King & Co.

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Photo: The RMS Windsor Castle, the flagship of Union-Castle Line, steams gracefully into Durban harbour at the end of another express mailship voyage from Southampton in the 1960s via Las Palmas, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and East London.




Throughout the website any links to external websites will open up in a new window. When this happens you will be leaving the "The Lavender Ladies - Castles to the Cape" website. So when you leave this website we hope you have enjoyed your visit to us today and will return again soon.

If you have any comments about this website please feel free to contact me, Alex Naughton, via e-mail at:

ajnaughton@hotmail.com
This Website is developed using historical information researched from a wide variety of sources, including books, magazines and websites etc too numerous to mention or credit individually. While we try our very best to ensure that any apparent "copyrights" are not breached, due to limited time and resources we cannot always guarantee that inadvertently mistakes may occur. But should such inadvertent mistakes come to light we will do our best to cooperate.

This website does not intend to infringe any copyright and all reasonable steps are taken to ensure this to the best of our ability with limited resources. It is believed that all the information contained in this website, apart from those articles written by the author, are freely available within the public domain (on websites and in other media) or freely given for use on this website. All information on this website is purely intended to help promote the story of Union-Castle Line and its ocean liners to a wider audience and to maritime enthusiasts and is entirely not-for-profit and is not intended for commercial gain. We warmly welcome any donations of photographs or information to this website on the basis that no financial reward is asked for or given as this website is purely for charitable not-for-profit purposes. If you have any comments or wish anything removed from or added to the website then please contact ajnaughton@hotmail.com

 
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The Red Ensign (British Merchant Navy)

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Union-Castle Line

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