![[Queen Steam Fishing Co. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~qsf.gif)
Last modified: 2021-05-29 by rob raeside
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image by Jarig Bakker,
based on the website of the National
Maritime Museum.
From the website of the National
Maritime Museum, the house flag of the Queen Steam Fishing Co Ltd., Grimsby.
A white flag with a blue saltire and a red letter 'Q' in the centre. The flag is
made of a wool and synthetic fibre bunting. It has a linen hoist and is machine
sewn.
Jarig Bakker, 24 August 2004
![[Queenship Navigation Ltd. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~qsf1.gif)
image
by Ivan Sache, 28 April 2021
The Queen Steam Fishing Company (QSFC) began as a family business in about 1900
owned by A. & R. Osborn. During the 1940s and 1950s the boats in its fishing
fleet were named after castles. The QSFC specialized in steam trawling in the
North Sea, but in 1956 went over to purse seine nets and changed the structure
of its fishing fleet accordingly. QSFC bought the 'Crescent', the ‘Helen
Jorgensen’ and the ‘Jane Jorgensen’(all purse seine netters) from Denmark.
Additionally they commissioned a new purse seine netter from Scotland (they also
owned eight steam trawlers at that time). In 1965 the Ross Group launched an
offer to buy QSFC which was accepted. At that date the QSFC only owned two purse
seine netters: the ‘Sandringham’ and the ‘Crescent II’. After the takeover the
house flag of the QSFC ceased to be used.
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/338.html
National
Maritime Museum (link to be updated)
Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels
(1912) shows the house flag of Queen Steam Fishing Co., Ltd. (#1033, p. 86), as
blue with a white "Q".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/51/
Ivan Sache, 28 April 2021
![[Queenship Navigation Ltd. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~qn.gif)
image
by Jarig Bakker
Brown (1951) shows exactly the same flag as the Queen Steam Fishing Co. flag
(but proportioned 2:3) for the Queenship Navigation Ltd., London.
Jarig Bakker, 24 August 2004
![[RACAL Energy Resources Ltd. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~racal.gif)
image by Jarig
Bakker, 11 November 2005
RACAL Energy Resources Ltd., London - yellow flag, red rounded rectangle, white
"RACAL".
Source: Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 11 November 2005
The company started off in the late1950s in electronics, manufacturing
communications equipment based on a method for generating High Frequencies for
long range communication invented by a South African electronics engineer. Their
customers were mainly the navies of the West. The advent of satellite
communications probably forced them to diversify.
Andries Burgers, 12 November 2005
![[Charles Radcliffe & Co. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~hfchr.gif)
image by Ivan
Sache, 28 April 2021
Charles Radcliffe was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1862. His father was a
stonemason who worked at the Penydarren Ironworks. He had two elder brothers,
Henry and Daniel. Both his elder brothers had moved to Cardiff, where Henry
worked for the shipowner, J.H.Bannning, and Daniel for another shipping company,
Turnbulls of Whitby (Yorkshire) in their Cardiff offices. Charles also moved to
Cardiff but joined the Civil Service, working for the Board of Trade, Marine
Division.
In 1881 Henry Radcliffe had become a partner in the shipping
company, Evan Thomas, Radcliffe, and had prospered, and when Evan Thomas died in
1891, both Charles and Daniel Radcliffe joined their brother for a short time,
before setting up in business on their own in that same year, managing the
Glamorgan Steamship Co, with one ship, the "Lady Armstrong". In 1892 they also
took on the management of the "Peterston" (built in Whitby). In 1901 Charles
Radcliffe purchased the "Craiglea" (his brother Daniel also being a member of
his company) and over the ensuing years the Radcliffes ran some five ships
("Rochdale", "Snowdon", "Reresby", "Atherstone" and "Penstone"). The company
lost some of its fleet as casualties of the First World War, but continued to be
successful and in the early 1920s invested heavily in new ships ("Amblestone",
"Coniston", "Rochdale", "Snowdon" and "Overstone"). In 1926 with the death of
Charles Radcliffe the company closed down.
Charles Racliffe had also
founded the Tydfil Engineering and Ship Repairing Co at Cardiff around 1892,
once one of the largest ship repairing companies in the town.
https://www.angelfire.com/de/BobSanders/SHIPCO.html
Short histories of
some Cardiff area shipping companies
Lloyd's Book of House Flags and
Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of Charles Radcliffe & Co. (#874, p. 78) as
red with a white lozenge charged with a red "R&Co" monogram.
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/43/
Ivan
Sache, 28 April 2021
![[Evan Thomas Radcliffe & Co. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~hfetr.gif)
image by Ivan
Sache, 26 April 2021
The company was well known in tramp circles as the South Wales British India
Line because of their original identical funnel colours. Evan Thomas came from
Aberporth which had a substantial fleet of small sailing ships in the middle of
the last century.
He then commanded steam tramps trading to the Baltic,
Mediterranean, Black Sea and America. He then set up in business with a Merthyr
Tydfil businessman Henry Radcliffe, who had gained his shipping experience with
Watts, Milburn & Co., Newcastle and J.H. Anning of Cardiff. They ordered a new
two masted schooner-rigged steam tramp from Palmers, Jarrow and named her "Gwenllian
Thomas" after the daughter of Evan, who commanded her on her maiden voyage in
June 1882. She was registered under a single ship limited liability company as
were the first thirty tramps in the fleet. She loaded steam coal at Cardiff for
Saint-Nazaire and then sailed in ballast for Bilbao to load iron ore for
Cardiff, repeating this for a while then made three voyages to Gibraltar for
copper ore from Huelva for Liverpool. She made occasional voyages on the
‘eternal triangle’ with grain homeward from the Black Sea.
Good profits
were made by the first tramp and the fleet expanded to six by 1884. These were
named after Evan’s daughters Kate and Ann and his only son Walter and his sister
Mary. On the Radcliffe side W.I. Radcliffe was the only son and Clarissa his
daughter. The first tramp with a ‘Llan’ prefix was "Llanberis" of 1890. The
fleet had expanded to 15 tramps when Evan died on 14th November 1891 aged 49
years. Henry Radcliffe then took his younger brother Daniel aged 24 years into
partnership with him after years experience with Anning and the Turnbull
brothers. The Thomas family ceased to run the business.
https://www.shippingtandy.com/features/evan-thomas-radcliffe-co/
Shipping Today and Yesterday, 9 July 2019
Lloyd's Book of House Flags and
Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of
Evan Thomas Radcliffe & Co., also D. &
C. Radcliffe (#644, p. 67) as red with a white anchor placed per bend and
surrounded by the white letters "T" and "R".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/32/
Ivan
Sache, 26 April 2021
![[Ragusa Steamship & Co., Ltd. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~hfrag.gif)
image by Ivan
Sache, 3 May 2021
Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of Ragusa
Steamship & Co., Ltd., also M. Thomas & Son Shipping Co., Ltd. (#1714, p. 118),
a Cardiff-based shipping company, as blue with the white letters "MT&Son" in the
center.
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/#83
Ivan
Sache, 3 May 2021
![[Franz Rahtkens & Co. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~hffrh.gif)
image by Ivan
Sache, 26 April 2021
Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of Franz
Rahtkens & Co. (#670, p. 68), a Middlesbrough-based company, as white with two
thin horizontal red stripes on top and bottom and the blue letters "F.R. & Co.".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/33/
Ivan
Sache, 26 April 2021
![[J. Raine & Son houseflag]](../images/g/gb~hfjra.gif)
image by Ivan
Sache, 27 April 2021
Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of J.
Raine & Son (#803, p. 75), a Sunderland-based company, as black with two
horizontal red stripes.
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/40/
Ivan Sache, 27 April 2021
![[Rankine Line, Ltd. houseflag]](../images/g/gb~hfcra.gif)
image by Ivan
Sache, 24 April 2021
Lloyd's Book of House Flags and Funnels (1912) shows the house flag of
Clanrye Steamship Co., Ltd. (#446, p. 58), a Newry-based company as white with a
red "C".
https://research.mysticseaport.org/item/l011061/l011061-c008/#23
Ivan
Sache, 24 April 2021
![[Gibson Rankine Line houseflag]](../images/g/gb~ggr.gif)
image by Jarig
Bakker
The flagchart "Vlaggen in de haven van Amsterdam" (flags in the harbour of
Amsterdam), no date shows the flag of the Gibson Rankine Line, Leith (Scotland)
- white with a rope in TV-screen form around two masted flag in saltire. The
flag to the hoist is the Gibson flag; the flag at fly-side
maybe another Gibson flag, though the letters are hardly visible
Jarig Bakker, 6 July 2004
Gibson Rankine Line. The flag is not shown by any other source but the design
of the crossed flags did appear on the funnels of craft involved on certain
routes. The 2nd flag is that of Rankine Line Ltd. operated by James Rankine &
Sons until taken over in 1920 and comprises 5 horizontal bands of
red-white-blue-white-red with on the blue band the white letters "GR&SA".
Sources vary as to whether the bands were equal with some showing the blue
widest but then varying amongst themselves as to whether the red and white were
equal or greater than one or the other.
Neale Rosanoski, 18 July 2005
