page_title: Lamport and Holt
section_title: Between the World Wars
hierarchical_section_title: Lamport and Holt / Between the World Wars
caption_attribution_description: English: photo shows the ill-fated Vestris desperately battling the angry seas before it succumbed to its watery grave, listing to port so badly that part of the upper deck was awash. This dramatic picture of the Vestris was taken by a member of the crew, one of the last to take to the lifeboats
context_page_description: Lamport and Holt was a UK merchant shipping line. It was founded as a partnership in 1845, reconstituted as a limited company in 1911 and ceased trading in 1991.
  From 1845 until 1975 Lamport and Holt was headquartered in Liverpool. The founders of Booth Line and Blue Funnel Line had family links with the original partners in Lamport and Holt, and worked for them before founding their own steamship lines in the 1860s.
  Lamport and Holt was an independent partnership until 1911, when it became a limited company and the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company took it over. RMSP collapsed as a result of the Royal Mail Case in 1931 but was reconstituted as Royal Mail Lines in 1932. Vestey Group bought Lamport and Holt in 1944 and absorbed it into its Blue Star Line subsidiary in 1991.
  For much of its history Lamport and Holt traded with the east coast of South America, operating liner services there to and from New York, Britain and mainland Europe. from 1902 to 1928 it operated a significant passenger ocean liner service and from 1932 to 1939 it ran cruise ships.
  Lamport and Holt carried cargo for the UK government in the Crimean War, World War I, World War II and Falklands War.
context_section_description: Lamport and Holt replaced First World War losses mostly by buying war standard merchant ships that had been ordered by the UK Shipping Controller. The Type B war standard was a 5,030 GRT two-deck dry cargo steamship. In 1919–20 Lamport and Holt bought nine of them, renamed each of them with a name beginning with "B", and they became the "B-class". The Type N war standard was a 6,500 GRT dry cargo steamship of fabricated construction. In 1919 Lamport and Holt bought two that Harland and Wolff had been building for the Shipping Controller, and had them completed to L&H's own specification as Nasmyth and Newton.
  Lamport and Holt also ordered ships built entirely to its specification, starting with the 7,327 GRT steamship Laplace from A McMillan launched in 1919 and 7,453 GRT Laplace from D&W Henderson launched in 1920. A McMillan followed these with Lamport and Holt's first motor ships, the 7,412 GRT Leighton and 7,424 GRT Linnell launched in 1921 and 7,417 GRT Lassell launched in 1922. Together these two steamships and three motor ships formed the "L-class", each of which had berths for 12 passengers. D&W Henderson also supplied a larger ship, the 8,190 GRT Hogarth, launched in 1921.
  In the war the V-class liners Vandyck, Voltaire and Verdi had all been sunk. Vandyck and Voltaire had each been more than 10,000 GRT, but Lamport and Holt decided that their replacements should be considerably larger. Accordingly, Workman, Clark & Co launched a new 13,233 GRT Vandyck in 1921 and her sister, the new 13,243 GRT Voltaire, in 1923.
  Vandyck was Lamport and Holt's first steam turbine ship. She had four turbines, which drove her twin screws by double reduction gearing, giving her a speed of 14 ¹⁄₂ knots (27 km/h). However, for the new Voltaire two years later Lamport and Holt reverted to a pair of quadruple-expansion engines, one driving each of her twin screws. This gave Voltaire the same speed as her turbine-powered sister.
  By 1924 Lamport and Holt's fleet had increased to 50 ships with a combined tonnage of 322,857 GRT.
  On 12 November 1928 Vestris foundered in a heavy sea in the North Atlantic about 300 miles off Hampton Roads with the loss of at least 110 lives. Both the sinking and the loss of life were attributed to Lamport and Holt's negligence. The adverse publicity led the company to withdraw its New York – River Plate passenger service. Its ocean liners returned to Britain and were laid up: Vauban and Vandyck at Southampton and Voltaire on the River Blackwater, Essex.
  The Great Depression that began in 1929 caused a global slump in shipping. Lamport and Holt's parent company RMSP ran into financial trouble and in 1930 the UK Government investigated its affairs. In 1931 RMSP's chairman, Lord Kylsant, was tried in the Royal Mail Case for misrepresenting the state of the company and was jailed. In 1932 the group was reconstituted as a new company, Royal Mail Lines under a new chairman. In 1934 Lamport and Holt was restructured. The LB&RP Steam Navigation Co took over all the assets of Lamport and Holt, and the new company was called Lamport and Holt Line Ltd.
  In 1930 Lamport and Holt owned 41 ships. As the slump deepened the company laid up many of its cargo ships as well as its passenger liners. Between 1930 and 1935 Lamport and Holt sold almost half of its fleet. In 1932 the liners Vandyck and Voltaire returned to service as cruise ships. This proved successful, so the pair were refitted for their new purpose and their hulls were repainted in white. From then until 1939 they offered holiday cruises to the Mediterranean, West Africa, islands in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, Norway and the Baltic.
  Slowly global trade recovered until Lamport and Holt felt able to add new cargo ships. In 1937 Harland and Wolff completed the 6,065 GRT motor ship Delius. It was Lamport and Holt's first new ship since Voltaire in 1923: a gap of 14 years. Delius was joined by her 6,054 GRT sisters Delane and Devis in 1938. Each of these "D-class" ships had berths for 12 passengers. They were of strikingly modern appearance, with clean lines and a sin
caption: Vestris listing to starboard with part of her upper deck awash before she sank in 1928
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