page_title: Killick Martin & Company
section_title: Notable Captains
hierarchical_section_title: Killick Martin & Company / History / Shipowners (1862–1886) / Notable Captains
caption_attribution_description: English: Captain James Lowe
context_page_description: Killick Martin and Company Ltd is a privately owned global transport and logistics company with its head office in the United Kingdom. The company can trace its origins back to 1861 when it was founded by Captain James Killick and James Henry Martin. The company provides ocean freight, air freight, road freight, customs clearance, warehousing and supply chain management services. The company today has 5 offices in the United Kingdom and a global network of agencies.The ultimate parent company is Atlantic Pacific Group Ltd.
context_section_description: James Killick - Captain of Challenger 
  James Killick was born on 26 August 1816 in Surrey. The first ship on which Killick served was The Ganges in 1833. Many of the ships he served on were not known but he is next recorded as commander of the Arun in the Canton Press in 1841. He then commanded the John Dugdale in 1845. In 1849 he obtained his Masters Certificate.
  Challenger was built in 1852 by Richard & Henry Green, in their Blackwall Yard for Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, London. She was a remarkable departure from the previous ships produced. In 1850 the American clipper ship Oriental visited West India Docks, the largest clipper ship to visit London and the Admiralty was given permission to take her lines, and this was done by Messrs Waymouth and Cornish, both Lloyd's Surveyors, in the dry dock at Green's Yard in Blackwell. This is probably the reason that it was said that Challenger's design was inspired by and had a close resemblance to the Oriental's.
  From The Copartnership Herald, Vol. I, no. 8 (October 1931)
  ...American ships, which still held the supremacy until soon after Richard Green had declared his decision not to be beaten by them. He had a new tea clipper built at his yard at Blackwall, called the Challenger, of 699 tons, and she was sent off to China, Captained by James Killick in 1852. Having loaded tea at Shanghai, she set out for London, calling in at Anjer where she met the American ship, Challenge, which was on her way to London with a cargo of tea from Canton. The Challenge was a 2,000 tonner, built expressly for speed and capacity, and was the largest clipper built by the Americans until that time. So it was that a race home was started by these two vessels, the smaller British clipper gaining London two days ahead of her huge rival. Naturally, this set the hearts of all the British owners aglow, and was instrumental in urging on the efforts of our shippers to capture the China trade.
  On 8 August 1853 Captain James Killick commenced another race with Challenger against the American clipper Nightingale from Shanghai. Challenger reached Deal on the 26 November, 2 days earlier than Nightingale.
  Captain James Killick went on to found Killick Martin in 1863 and purchased Challenger in 1865.
  John Smith - Captain of John C.Munro & Maju
  John Smith was born in Anstruther, Fife, in 1823. His life at sea saw him rise from a boy on a Greenland whaler, to the position of master of the Lahloo, one of the most successful of the China tea clippers. After the loss of the Lahloo in 1872, Smith was given a position by Killick Martin & Company, first as Captain of John C. Munro in 1873 and then to oversee the building of their New vessel, Maju at Dundee. She was an iron clipper intended for the "China Run", and much was expected of her in the trade. She sailed from Dundee on her maiden voyage bound for Rangoon with Smith in command, but was lost with all hands five days later off Barvas in Lewis, in the "Great Gale of 21st October, 1874". John Smith’s body was recovered and he is buried at Riccarton, Ayrshire. Eleven members of the crew are buried at Barvas, Lewis. A book has been written about his life called China Clipper Captain by John Robinson. The house John Smith was born in has a blue plaque to commemorate his life and another he had built in 1870 is also a hotel called The Spendrift both in Anstruther, East Neuk of Fife.
  John Gadd- Captain of Kaisow
  Captain John Gadd was born in 1825. He took command of Kaisow at 50 years of age in 1875 and stayed with the ship until she was sold in 1885. 
  In 1883 Kaisow was passing Krakatoa at the time of its eruption. Second mate on Kaisow was Harry Davis, who went on to be a Captain himself, wrote a very graphic account of the experience. He described how Captain John Gadd sailed the ship down the Sunda Straits, braced sharp up, how the ship weathered the erupting island and so got into the open water and felt the tail end of the huge Tidal wave which tore north up the Sunda Straits. 
  Both sides of the Sunda straights were hit taking out 165 villages. The town of Anjur was com
caption: Captain James Lowe
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