1
https://web.archive.org/web/20110406151600/http://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/mpcimg/02750/B2584.htm
3https://archive.today/20121127140348/http://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/mpcimg/18250/B18019.htm 4])
*1904 Adelaide Steamship Company building constructed in Melbourne
*1911
SS Yongala lost without trace (discovered in 1958)
*1912
SS Koombana lost without trace
*1914–1918 World War I – several ships were requisitioned
*1915 Took over Coast Steamships Limited
*1920 Liquidated and reconstructed
*1920
Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd (The Engineers' Case)
*1933 First
John Martin's Christmas Pageant
*1935 Formed Adelaide Airways Limited
*1936 Purchased
West Australian Airways
*1936 Merged with Holyman's Airways to form
Australian National Airways
*1939 Currie St (Adelaide) building changed significantly (Images
1https://archive.today/20121127050720/http://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/mpcimg/12500/B12331.htm 2])
*1939–1945 World War II – several ships were requisitioned
*1940s Diversified into towage, shipbuilding, and the shipping of salt, coal and sugar.
*1957 Sold Australian National Airways to
Ansett Transport Industries
Ansett Australia was a major Australian airline group, based in Melbourne, Australia. The airline flew domestically within Australia and from the 1990s to destinations in Asia. After operating for 65 years, the airline was placed into admini ...
*1964 Interstate fleet merged with
McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co
McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co was an Australian shipping company.
History
McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co (MMC) was founded in 1875 in London by Scottish sea captains, Andrew McIlwraith and Malcolm McEacharn. In 1876 it began operating ships to take Br ...
to form Associated Steamship Limited
*1964 The world's first purpose-built container ship was constructed
*1965 Acquired 40% interest in
Bulkships
Bulkships was an Australian shipping company.
History
Bulkships was founded in 1958 by the Adelaide Steamship Company, Howard Smith and McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co as a bulk carrier operator.[Tooth & Co
Tooth and Co was the major brewer of beer in New South Wales, Australia. The company owned a large brewery on Broadway in Sydney from 1835 until 1985, known as the Kent Brewery. It was historically one of Australia's oldest companies, having bee ...]
acquired
Penfolds
*1977 Bulkships sold; ceased connection with ship owning and operating
*1980 Acquired a substantial interest in
David Jones Limited
David Jones Pty Limited, trading as David Jones (colloquially DJs), is an Australian High-End department store, owned since 2014 by South African retail group Woolworths Holdings Limited.
David Jones was founded in 1838 by David Jones, a Welsh ...
*1980 Adelaide Steamship Company building in Melbourne destroyed
*1981 Acquired Tooth & Co (via David Jones (Properties) Pty Ltd)
*1981 Acquired
Georges (store), Georges (via David Jones)
*1982 Acquired
Buckley & Nunn (via David Jones)
*1983 Sold Tooth & Co brewing interests to
Carlton & United Breweries
*1985 Acquired
John Martins
*1989 Industrial Equity Limited purchased from
Brierley Investments
GL Limited is an investment company listed on the Singapore Exchange. Founded as Brierley Investments in 1961, it was formerly listed on the Australian, London and New Zealand exchanges.
History
Brierley Investments was founded by Ron Brierley i ...
*1990 Wine interests sold to
South Australian Brewing Company
The South Australian Brewing Company, Limited is a brewery located in Thebarton, an inner-west suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It is a subsidiary of Lion, which in turn is owned by Kirin, a Japan-based beverage company. It manufactures ...
*1990 Share price crash
*1991 Adsteam commenced liquidation of assets
*1991
National Foods floated
*1993
Woolworths
Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to:
Businesses
* F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores
* Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shop ...
floated
*1993 Adsteam Marine created as the last remaining operational division of Adelaide Steamship Company.
*1994 The
Australian Taxation Office ruled to disallow IEL $524m of deductions regarding the Woolworth float
*1994 "Adelaide Steamship Company (via ASIC) vs former Adsteam directors and auditors" commenced
*1995 David Jones floated
*1997 Adelaide Steamship Company renamed Residual Assco Group
*1997 Adsteam Marine floated
*1999 Liquidation of assets completed – Residual Assco Limited delisted – "Residual Assco has no operating businesses but remains active while several IEL tax disputes wind their way through the courts."
*2000 "Residual Assco (via ASIC) vs former AdSteam directors and auditors" reached settlement
*2001 Adsteam Marine acquired tug operations of
Howard Smith Limited
Howard Smith Limited was an Australian industrial company. Founded in 1854 as a shipping company, it later diversified into coal mining, steel production, stevedoring, travel, railway rolling stock building, sugar production and retail. Its divi ...
for A$500m
*2006 Adsteam Marine acquired by
AP Moeller-Maersk
*2007 Residual Assco's annual report notes that the group holds $429 million "on deposit pending resolution of the outstanding matters between IEL and the ATO"
*2007 IEL given leave to challenge the ATO ruling
People
Throughout its history, many people have been involved with, played significant roles in and/or been associated with the company:
*
Robert Barr Smith (1824–1915) – founding director. Brother-in-law of founding director Sir
Thomas Elder, with whom he was partner in
Elder Smith and Company. (Barr Smith married Elder's sister Joanna.)
[van Dissel, Dirk (1976)]
'Smith, Robert Barr (1824–1915)'
. Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
, Volume 6, Melbourne University Press, pp 153–154. Retrieved 9 July 2009.
*
Tom Elder Barr Smith
Thomas Elder Barr Smith (8 December 1863 – 26 November 1941)
was a South Australian pastoralist and philanthropist.
Tom Barr Smith was born in Woodville, South Australia, the son of Robert Barr Smith,
and his wife Joanna Lang, ''née'' Elder ...
(1863–1941) – director (eldest son of Robert Barr Smith)
* Sir
Tom Elder Barr Smith
Thomas Elder Barr Smith (8 December 1863 – 26 November 1941)
was a South Australian pastoralist and philanthropist.
Tom Barr Smith was born in Woodville, South Australia, the son of Robert Barr Smith,
and his wife Joanna Lang, ''née'' Elder ...
(1904–1968) – director and deputy chairman (1960–1968) (son of Tom Elder Barr Smith)
*
William Beardmore, 1st Baron Invernairn (1856–1936) – shipbuilder
*
William Berry (1857–1928) – completed his qualifying sea service with the company and went on to become their chief engineer
* Neil Leslie Branford – Chief Accountant of
John Martins, AdSteam
Company Secretary from the mid-1980s to early 1990s
[
* Sir Ron Brierley – New Zealand investor, corporate raider, and chairman and director of a number of companies in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. He founded ]Brierley Investments
GL Limited is an investment company listed on the Singapore Exchange. Founded as Brierley Investments in 1961, it was formerly listed on the Australian, London and New Zealand exchanges.
History
Brierley Investments was founded by Ron Brierley i ...
in 1961 and purchased his first shareholdings in Industrial Equity Limited (IEL) in 1964. IEL purchased Woolworths in 1989, and later in 1989 Brierly sold IEL to the AdSteam Group.
* George Calder (1839–1903) – mariner
* David Charleston
David Morley Charleston (27 May 1848 – 30 June 1934) was a Cornish-born Australian politician. Born in St Erth, Cornwall, he received only a primary education before becoming an apprentice engineer at Harvey & Co ironworks, and later an eng ...
(1848–1934) – marine engineer and unionist who worked for the company after migrating to Australia in 1884
* Bruce Corlett – Chairman of Adsteam Marine Limited
* Charles D'Ebro
Charles Abraham D'Ebro (1850–1920) was a London-born architect who designed many important buildings in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia during the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Many of these buildings are now preserved under heri ...
(1850–1920) – architect who in 1904 designed the Adelaide Steamship Building in Melbourne
* Deloitte Haskings & Sells and Deloitte Ross Tohmatsu – Adsteam auditors (?-1990)[
* Frank Duffy (1852–1936) – High Court Judge involved in the decision of the '']Engineers' Case
''Amalgamated Society of Engineers v Adelaide Steamship Co Ltd'', commonly known as the ''Engineers case'', . was a landmark decision by the High Court of Australia on 31 August 1920. The immediate issue concerned the Commonwealth's power under ...
''
* Sir Walter Gordon Duncan (1885–1963) – Director between 1932 and 1960
* Francis Vivian Dunstan – father of Don Dunstan; former Premier of South Australia; manager of the company's Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consis ...
office from 1916 until the family's return to Adelaide in 1933
* Sir Thomas Elder (1818–1897) – founding director. Brother-in-law of founding director Robert Barr Smith, with whom he was partner in Elder Smith and Company. Elder never married, but Barr Smith named his first-born Tom Elder Barr Smith
Thomas Elder Barr Smith (8 December 1863 – 26 November 1941)
was a South Australian pastoralist and philanthropist.
Tom Barr Smith was born in Woodville, South Australia, the son of Robert Barr Smith,
and his wife Joanna Lang, ''née'' Elder ...
.[Gosse, Fayette. (1972]
'Elder, Sir Thomas (1818–1897)'
, Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
, Volume 4, Melbourne University Press, pp 133–134. Retrieved 11 July 2009.
* Alexander Forrest (1849–1901) – negotiated in 1893 the contract with the Adelaide Steamship for serving Western Australian ports
* Clayton Frederick – Chief Executive Officer between 1993 and 2004, during Adsteam Marine's expansion to become Australia's largest towage operator
* James Gosse (1876–1952) – director and chairman
* Michael Stevenson Gregg – director (?-1990)[
* Robert Holmes à Court – Australia's first billionaire; a feared corporate raider of the 1980s who set up Bell Resources, a company 20% owned by the AdSteam Group][
* Sir Ivan Nello Holyman (1896–1957) – merged Holymany's Airways with AdSteam's Adelaide Airways in 1936, and initiated moves which led in November 1936 to the formation of Australian National Airways
* Henry Keep (1863–1905) – shipping agent for AdSteam in Fremantle, 1893–1897
* Michael James Kent – director (?-1990)][
* Herbert Lloyd (1883–1957) – board member of several companies, including the Adelaide Steamship Company, from 1946 to his retirement
* George R L Macdonald – company secretary (1990–1994) and corporate lawyer
* Malcolm McEacharn (1852–1910) – shipowner and partner of McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co which merged with the Adelaide Steamship Co in 1964
* Andrew McIlwraith (1844–1932) – shipowner and partner of McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co which merged with the Adelaide Steamship Co in 1964
* Hugo Muecke (1842–1929) – director of many companies, including the Adelaide Steamship
* Guy Packard (1884–1963) – Manager and later Director; also had financial interests in Australian National Airways
* Daniel Poole DCM & ]Bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar ( ...
(1882–1959) – recommended for the VC during World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
; worked for both McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co and Adelaide Steamship Company
* Robert Dalrymple Ross
Sir Robert Dalrymple Ross (1827–1887) was an army officer, politician and businessman.
He was born at St Vincent in the West Indies, son of John Pemberton Ross, Speaker of the House of Assembly at St Vincent, and his wife, the only daughter o ...
(1827–1887) – Chairman of the company during the 1870s and 1880s
* Ken Russell (Kenneth William Russell, ?-1999) – Chairman (?-1990)[
* David J Ryan – held various senior positions in the company from 1997 to 2002; foundation Managing Director of Adsteam Marine Limited
* Charles Seymour (1853–1924) – seaman, journalist and militant unionist who worked for the company in the late 1800s
* John Spalvins (Janis Gunars Spalvins) – Managing Director (1977–1990)][
* Andrew Tennant (1835–1913) – founding director][Combe, Gordon D (1976)]
'Tennant, Andrew (1835–1913)'
. Australian Dictionary of Biography
The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's ...
, Volume 6, Melbourne University Press, pp 255–256. Retrieved 9 July 2009.
* Alfred Wells – designer of original company building at 17 Currie Street, Adelaide
* Robert Wright – executive director, 1991–1995
Company Archives
The archives of the Adelaide Steamship Company are held by the Noel Butlin Archives Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra.
See also
* Mosquito Fleet (Johnstone River, Queensland)#The Adelaide Steamship Company
* Timeline of Australian history
References and notes
*Clarke, Frank, Graeme Dean and Kyle Oliver (2003)
''Corporate Collapse: Accounting, Regulatory and Ethical Failure''
2nd Edition. Published by Cambridge University Press. . .Front matterIndex
/small>
Further reading
;Shipping
*Mann, J.W. (1965). ''Well afloat in changing time'' delaide Steamship Co. Port Melbourne Quarterly, V.16, April–June 1965.
* Page, Michael (1975)
''Fitted for the Voyage: The Adelaide Steamship Company, 1875–1975''
Published by Rigby, Adelaide SA. .
* Parsons, Ronald (1975)
''The Adelaide Line: A Centenary History of the Adelaide Steamship Company Ltd., 1875–1975''
Published by rhParsons, Magill, SA. . .
* Stapleton, A. (1975). ''"Festina Lente": the Adelaide Steamship Company's 100 years of service'', Cargo Handling and Shipbuilding Quarterly, V.14, September 1975 .
;Australian corporate governance
*Clarke, Frank and Graeme Dean (2007)
''Indecent Disclosure: Gilding the Corporate Lily''
Published by Cambridge University Press. .
*Government of South Australia, Auditor-General's Department (1993
''Report of the Auditor-General on an investigation into the State Bank of South Australia : pursuant to Section 25 of the State Bank of South Australia Act 1983 (as amended), volume 6 The management of credit: case studies, Chapter 9: Case Study in Credit Management: The Adsteam Group''
External links
Australian Light Horse Studies Centre
{{Business in Australia, state=collapsed
Australian ship owners
Defunct shipping companies of Australia
Shipbuilding companies of Australia
Maritime history of Australia
Corporate raiders
Companies based in Adelaide
Legal history of Australia
History of Port Adelaide
Transport companies established in 1875
Australian companies established in 1875