The Red Jacket

All partners were liable for the expenses and debts of the firm and the risks were high, but so were the rewards and those with proven abilities and flair for business flourished, especially as the Australian trade picked up. Many of the partnership arrangements within shipbroking firms were in a constant state of flux.

Richard Baines' shipbroking office was typical of the day and located in a terrace of offices known as the Wellington Buildings at Poole Lane. All the offices had a standard layout pattern to them. The outer office was furnished with benches for those waiting to do business. There was a counter and behind it high desks and stools where busy clerks recorded all their transactions in leather-bound ledgers.

The head clerk's desk stood on a raised dias slightly higher than the others and there was usually a cashier's booth behind the counter. The principal partner's offices were beyond and they were more lavishly furnished with comfortable surroundings such as paneled walls, carpeted floors, large desks, and comfortable chairs in a spacious room. A library, ship models, and maritime paintings usually graced the walls.

By 1845, James Baines had completed his apprenticeship and had turned 22 years old, old enough to become a partner. Apparently, young Baines by that time had caught the eye of John Hamilton, a well established Liverpool merchant and shipbroker that was much impressed with Baines' abilities as a freight collector. The new firm acted as agents for a number of vessels engaged in the India and China trades.

This partnership was not to last long and the cause of the dissolution is not known, but a clash occurred. Baines, in 1846, next joined forces with Joseph Carter in the partnership of Carter & Baines and began chartering ships. Soon, they became ship owners with the acquisition of the barque-rigged General Sale, a medium-sized vessel of 405 tons registered that was built in 1843 at Sunderland and had then just completed a round voyage to China. The ship was damaged and her asking price low.

Carter & Baines borrowed money and acquired a controlling two-thirds interest of the 64 shares. They also brought in an outside investor, corn merchant Mr. John Wylde, who acquired the remaining third of the shares, to complete the transaction.

The partners had to come up with 50% of the purchase price as custom dictated following the signing of the contract at which time the first 10% of the purchase price of the General Sale was paid. The remaining 50% were paid in bills that came due in six months down the road, hopefully after the ship had returned from her next voyage. As a matter of course, Carter & Baines soon mortgaged their first ship to the bank as well and some of this money went for the first ship payment.

This first venture toward ship ownership proved most precarious as the lenders took over the shares as the first and second mortgages of the General Sale ran out, and she was sold to Cork timber merchants.

Carter & Baines ventured into ship owning again in early 1847 when they purchased half the shares of the 421 ton Charles Brownell, a full-rigged ship and immediately mortgaged their shares for £1800 in January and paid off the debt in June. That same day, they borrowed more money and two months later borrowed some more.

The financial panic of 1847 had set in by the fall, and on November 5th, W. & J. Lockett, the merchants and shippers that Carter & Baines had borrowed the money from, foreclosed on the Charles Brownell and she was sold to Thomas Ismay, the future founder of the White Star Line.

Ship owning was proving to be a most precarious trade and the panic of 1847 had temporarily set him back, but along the way James Baines had become acquainted and involved with Israel Barned of Barned's Bank and his family. Early on, James Baines gained the confidence of the Mozleys, Barned's relatives, and the directors of the bank. This relationship would grow in the coming years.

Carter & Baines remained busy over the following spring in early 1848, as shipbrokers advertising for freight to fill the holds of ships destined for New Orleans, Boston, Rio de Janeiro, and around the Horn to Valparaiso.

By the fall, Bombay, India was added to their roster when they took on cargo for the Lady of the Lake, a ship owned by Rankin Gilmour & Co.

In March of that year, Baines bought his first Canadian ship, the Caledonia, built at St. John's in 1841. It was a shipbroking transaction for he registered his purchase of the Caledonia on March 31, 1848 and sold the ship that same day to Liverpool ship owner John Garrow.

James Baines seems have come into some money possibly from his marriage around that time to Anne Netherton on May 4, 1848. There is also evidence that suggests that he may have taken a controlling interest in the family sugar refinery.

James and Anne Baines first took up residence in the new suburbs near the botanical gardens on Holly Road, Elm Park, close to the Edge Hill Station and a short commute to Baines' office.

By March of the following year, Baines' partnership with Carter had dissolved and James Baines was in business for himself and his first venture was the advertising for freight for the Cuisachan, a 474-ton ship bound for Hong Kong, Calcutta, and Bombay.

He then proceeded to buy shares in two new Nova Scotian ships, both built in 1847, the Cleopatra and the Deborah.

The Cleopatra was a 421-ton brig recently built at Parrsborough, Nova Scotia. The Deborah was a 624-ton barque built at County Harbor, Nova Scotia. Baines now owned thirty-two shares in the Cleopatra and eight shares of the Deborah. Baines promptly mortgaged his shares of both vessels.

The Captain of the Cleopatra was none other than James Nichol Forbes. Baines and the captain were soon well acquainted as their common interests intertwined. Several swift and profitable voyages made by Forbes commanded ships over the coming years added to the growing prosperity of James Baines, who by 1850 was overcoming his problems of limited capital with his growing relationship with the Barned Bank.

With his growing prosperity, Baines moved to a larger house in 1851 that was closer to his business. This new residence was at 19 Peel Terrace, Upper Canning Street, a fashionable neighborhood of Georgian terraces at the end of Duke Street that was far enough from the poor sections and odorous industries of town, with well laid out streets and squares. A most suitable place for a young man on the rise in the shipbroking community. All four of James and Anne Baines' children were born there over the following decade.

Baines bought the 158-ton brigantine Express in July 1851. She was built in 1849 in Tatagamouche, Nova Scotia. In September 1851, the two firms officially joined in partnership when James Baines & Co. and Mackay & Miller bought thirty-two shares each in the brig Vesta.

Two months later in November, Baines bought the 1014-ton Maria, built the same year as the Express, from a shipyard at Quebec. The Maria had just returned from Australia. Captain Forbes had actually made the purchase of the Maria, but she was transferred to James Baines seven weeks later.

The two Liverpool shipwrights, Thomas Miller Mackay and William Cowley Miller, also bought shares in both vessels. In all likelihood her hull was coppered and she was fitted out at the Mackay & Miller shipyard. The Maria was then placed in the command of Captain Forbes.

For the first time, the destinies of James Baines and Thomas Miller Mackay were brought together in business and over the course of coming years Mackay would go on to be the most important partner and business associate that James Baines ever had as the two began their long remarkable and prosperous relationship.

Thomas Miller Mackay's past is somewhat of a mystery of which only fragments exist. His Scottish origins are certain and certainly many Scots in those days traveled down to Liverpool to secure a better future for themselves and their families. His father may well have been a non-commissioned officer who had served abroad most of the time.

Older than Baines, Mackay arrived in Liverpool in 1831 as a young man and is listed as being a corn merchant in 1835. By the early 1840s, he became involved with shipbuilding along with a partner from whom he may have received training as a shipwright.

By 1845, Mackay was on his own as a shipbuilder and he built a small 158-ton schooner, the Floria, and found a buyer for her in Valparaiso. From then on most of the work of the yard was directed toward ship repairs.

In 1849, William Cowley Miller joined Mackay in partnership and from then on did business as Mackay & Miller. Miller was most likely a relative of Mackay's. The partners wisely decided not to try and compete with the Canadian shipyards in the building of wooden ships and instead ship repairs remained the primary focus of the firm until the mid-1850s when the shipyard began to build iron vessels.

Mackay and Miller had bought a number of vessels on their own in early 1851. They swiftly learned that they were much better at repairing ships than at managing them. Certainly this fact had much to do with Thomas Mackay the shipbuilder seeking out James Baines the successful shipbroker to form a company for their mutual advantage. Mackay could quickly size up the sailing qualities of a ship and he brought a lot of capital to the venture and this made a big impression on Baines who brought his flair of shipbroking to the partnership. This combination guaranteed success and the two men worked well together for many profitable years.

Mackay joined the firm of James Baines & Co. after Baines had established the name of the firm and the new partner saw no reason to change it, for he did not have the same flair for self-promotion that Baines had and preferred to stay behind the scenes. Mackay was good at sizing up ships to purchase and maintaining them.

Mackay was a gifted writer and orator and was not shy in letting his opinions on a wide variety of subjects be heard, especially in the newspapers of the day such as The Times, where political and social matters of the day were discussed. He was opinionated and progressive and not afraid to speak out, especially upon maritime issues of the day, particularly over incidents around the time of the Crimean War.

Mackay was most adept at conducting the important political and social functions as spokesman of the Black Ball Line and upon many occasions joined with Baines to host the déjeuners that were held aboard each new Black Ball Liner about to sail on her maiden voyage. These déjeuners were well played in the newspapers and this favorable publicity did much to spur on the early success of the Black Ball Line.

Mackay was an important member of the Mersey River and Harbour Board for a time in 1857, where he constantly pushed for the excavation of deeper dock entrances on both banks of the Mersey River to accommodate the larger vessels.

Black Ball Liners up till then could not take on their full loads of cargo because of the shallow lock sills and eight to ten days before sailing had to be towed out into the river and anchored with the remaining cargo being brought out to them on sailing rafts, which was a costly way of doing things.

Australian Gold

The clipper fleet at Hobson's Bay, Australia

For years rumors of gold deposits existing in Australia, spurred on by chance discoveries, made their way across the sea lanes of the world, but officially the Colonial Australian government tried to hush them up--afraid that word of gold discoveries would cause trouble in the penal colonies.

An English adventurer, Edward Hargreaves, had sailed from Australia to California in 1849 to join the multitudes streaming to the gold rush country and had taken note of the similar geological characteristics of the gold fields in California and areas of New South Wales.

In January 1851, Hargreaves returned to Australia and began his search for the alluvial metal and on March 20th found gold at Summer Hill Creek. A State government geologist quickly confirmed Hargreaves' find. Soon, the word leaked out and the rush was on. In just over a week, there were 600 men digging away in the Summer Hill Creek area of New South Wales.

Word of the gold strike in New South Wales arrived at the London and Liverpool docks aboard English ships over the summer and The Times officially announced the discoveries on September 2, 1851.

By November 1851, the Ballarat gold field had also been discovered, with the encouragement of government officials of Melbourne who did not want their citizenry running off to New South Wales. Soon, Victoria had her own share of gold seekers as thousands of men lit out for the Ballarat gold fields.

The lucky few made enormous strikes, and most of the gold seekers were able to make a good living working together in small teams sifting out enough gold to make their efforts worthwhile.

Just like in California, many entrepreneurs discovered that there was more then one way to mine the gold in Australia than with a pan or pick and shovel and soon make-shift boom towns sprang up around the gold fields where essential goods, foodstuffs, and luxuries sold for fantastic prices.

It was not long before the shipping world grasped the enormity of the Australian gold strikes and soon they were scrambling to acquire the largest and fastest ships they could lay their hands on to meet the insatiable demand for manufactured goods of every description in Australia now that the Colony's labor force were deserting the local industries in droves for the gold fields.

Before the gold rush came, London ship owners held the lion's share of the Australian trade, but the enterprising shipbrokers of Liverpool were about to take the lead for they were quick to make good on the promise to deliver the goods along with shiploads of anxious gold seekers aboard fast ships to Melbourne as this early written passage attributed to American George Francis Train will attest:

. . . the whole shipping world is mad for it does really seem stark lunacy the way they are going on in England . . . With a population not exceeding 800,000 in all the colonies we have seen, are still receiving and shall receive goods for the next three months for at least 5 million people. . . and at one time there were 600 ships in Hobson's Bay deep loaded with valuable cargo, all clamouring to be discharged.

Two existing Liverpool firms were running regular packet services to Australia when the discovery of gold was announced. They were Walthew & Co., and Gibbs, Bright & Co. Both had ties to James Baines & Co.

The Albatross was a Gibbs, Bright & Co. ship that was the first to arrive at Liverpool with a shipment of Australian gold.

James Baines & Co. was quick to charter a ship to enter into the booming Australian trade by chartering the Flora MacDonald, a ship built at Quaco, New Brunswick, in 1846, to sail under contract to Portland Bay, Australia and advertised her April sailing in the Liverpool newspapers in February, 1852. Response was brisk and Baines & Co. followed this up with a number of other sailings along with Pilkington & Wilson, another Liverpool firm and the founder of the future White Star Line.

It proved to be an unusual and most interesting start for the Australian emigrant gold rush trade, for the three firms of Pilkington & Wilson, Gibbs, Bright & Co., and James Baines & Co. joined together and took out newspaper advertisements offering a series of joint sailings that included the Maria, the Northumberland, and the Argo. The three firms would become rivals in the years to come.

It is also noted that at that same time James Baines & Co. had taken out a separate advertisement in the same newspaper announcing that a new large Canadian ship, the Marco Polo, was going to sail to Australia on June 21, 1852, and this sailing ushered in the era of the Black Ball Line and the name first appeared in print in July 1852.

Next: Marco Polo

The Era of the Clipper Ships
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