Hall Line Ltd (shipowners: 1899-1994: Liverpool, England)

The Hall Line Ltd was founded as Robert & Young , shipmanagers, in Liverpool, England, in 1864 . The first sailing ships, the Bayard and Vernon , made their maiden voyages in 1864, one being despatched to India and the other to Australia. In 1868 , this partnership was dissolved when Robert Alexander started his own fleet of sailing ships in Liverpool named after historic English country houses and halls and trading under the name Robert Alexander & Co . The next three vessels were named the Haddon Hall , Locksley Hall and Eaton Hall , built in 1868, 1869, and 1870 respectively, and it was from the adoption of this distinctive nomenclature that the Line subsequently derived its name.

At that time, the firm's ships principally traded to India, Australia and the west coast of America, although the firm were already tending to concentrate their interests in the Indian trade in competition with George Smith & Sons, shipowners, Glasgow, Scotland. A typical voyage of the period was from Liverpool to Australia with passengers and general cargo, then on to San Francisco, USA, and home with wheat, or from Australia to Burma and then home with rice. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 it soon became evident that traffic through the Canal would adversely affect the employment of sailing ships to India, and the firm accordingly determined to establish a regular service of steamers to India with Bombay as their terminal port. The steamer service was inaugurated in 1873 with the City of Baltimore . Three new steamers entered into service over the next two years, the Branksome Hall , Merton Hall , and Werneth Hall . They were exceptionally large for their time, with superior passenger accommodation, and carrying about 6,000 tons dead weight of cargo. Additional steamers were built to meet the growing demand of trade, their last sailing ship being disposed of in 1881.

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