Moored next to a giant of the 1970s, the first ships of the Bibby Line would have looked like sprats alongside a basking shark; the Dove – the first ship in which John Bibby had a share, back in 1801, was a mere 60 tons burthen and probably no more than 65ft in length. The largest ship John Bibby ever owned was the Cestrian, at 380 tons and 109ft length she was a major step up from the Dove, but even the largest sailing ship the Bibbys ever owned – Melbourne – was only 1,212 tons.
Compare the English Bridge of 1973, 925ft in length and 167,000 tonnes deadweight. Almost the only similarity between her and the Dove is that they both floated in salt water. Material, design, propulsion, navigation, communications, crew skills, living conditions, range and cargo have all changed beyond recognition. The only other common factor for every ship that ventures out to the deep ocean is that not even the biggest and most technically sophisticated is entirely safe – the sea is capable of swallowing a steel Leviathan without trace; no mariner, of whichever century, would ever ignore the power of the elements.
John Bibby didn’t build a ship until 1812 – the Highfield, named after his partner John Highfield, was a brigantine of 142 tons, built in Chester (she was sold for breaking in 1839 with the rare distinction of having served with one owner for her entire 27 years). Up to that point, Bibby & Highfield acquired a mixed bag of vessels, some of them built on the Mersey and owned locally, and others were prizes captured from the French or the Spanish by privateers and sold on – L’Harmonie and Providence, for instance.
A couple of Bibby’s ships were lost to the same fate: Mary and Sarah, for instance, both seized and sold in the West Indies in 1810 by the marauding French while Napoleon was wreaking havoc across Europe. Mary had been acquired by Bibbys after she was detained at Liverpool as a prize in retaliation for the seizure by Denmark of British Baltic traders.
French privateers were only one hazard – shipwreck, fire, pirates and weather could be the cause of losses. As could the tiny Teredo navalis, or shipworm. Actually a bivalve mollusc, Teredo tunnels into submerged wood and digests the cellulose, creating serious damage to wooden hulls. The only effective prevention was to sheath the bottoms in copper as a barrier to the destructive creature. (Hence the expression ‘copper-bottomed’ to mean a safe investment.) Maria, built in Nova Scotia, was of birch planking with a layer of pine over the top to try to stop shipworm, but the technique was not successful and Maria only stayed in the fleet for two years. John Bibby and his sons profited handsomely, incidentally, making copper sheathing for ships at their rolling mills in Seacombe.
Sailing ships were always at the mercy of the weather – too much wind or no wind could keep a vessel in port for long enough to break contracts; bad weather en route, even if the ship got home, could mean months of repairs. To own ships carrying other people’s cargo was not a viable proposition; so most ships were owned by the merchants whose goods were being carried. It was unusual for a ship to have a single owner – too exposed to manifold marine hazards. Ownership of most ships was split into 64ths, with owners taking shares in a variety of vessels to spread the risk; and one individual or partnership would have the controlling interest and the management of the vessel.
John Bibby’s motley fleet needed constant replacement, as most of the early acquisitions were lost at sea; gradually John Bibby grew the fleet with his own new built vessels; by 1836 there were 18 ships, of which 15 had been built for Bibby. The total tonnage of these 18 vessels together, incidentally, was less than the gross tonnage of the first Lancashire, built in 1889 for John’s son and grandson, James and Arthur.