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Liverpool as the ‘Second City of Informal Empire’: Blue Funnel and Shanghai, 1865-1914
Abstract: Seeking employment as a Ship’s Surgeon c.1905, Irish medic J.J. Abraham was advised to find ‘a ship bound East… and one belonging to a good company… Liverpool’s the place! London’s not in it with Liverpool when it comes to shipping!’ Abraham’s subsequent voyage, documented in his best-selling travelogue first published in 1911, was on SS Clytemnestra of Liverpool’s Blue Funnel Line (Ocean Steam Ship Company or Alfred Holt & Company). Blue Funnel’s takeover of Glasgow-based and Manchester-linked China Mutual in 1902 confirmed the Liverpool line’s position as the UK’s leading cargo carrier to the ‘Far East’. Simultaneously, Blue Funnel was central to the growth of Liverpool’s Chinatown reckoned twice as large as London’s by the early-twentieth century. Pioneering direct steamship services from the UK to China, from its inception and first voyages (1865-6) much of Blue Funnel’s activity was concentrated on the premiere, British-dominated treaty-port of Shanghai. However, in examining seaborne ‘Informal Empire’ to the outbreak of World War One, this talk also recognises the limits of Liverpool’s influence. Blue Funnel’s reach was circumscribed by its ambiguous position betwixt industrial and financial capitalism, and strained relations with London powerbrokers. Moreover, by the end of the nineteenth century, Liverpool’s shipowner elite confronted uncertainty in China arising from internal instability and international commercial and power-political rivalry from which Shanghai was not immune.
