The Bowater Corporation had owned ships in the past through the acquisition of other paper manufactures such as the International Power and Paper Co of Newfoundland Ltd. WWII saw most of these ships lost to U-Boat activities, and then the Korean war caused the price of chartering soar.

The s.s Corner Brook (1925,5767grt) was the final ship to survive these early inroads to ship ownership before the Steamship Co was formed. Two steamships ships had been ordered prior to her disposal both from Dennys of Dumbarton,Scotland, these were the Margaret Bowater named after Sir Erics wife and Sarah Bowater named after a female member of the family a trait that would carry on throughout the fleet bar Nicolas Bowater which was to be the flagship of the fleet and Nina Bowater which appears to be a bit of a mistry.

Denny`s shipyard was probably chosen to build these ships as they had prior experience in the building of newsprint carriers. They were responsible for the design and construction of the t.s.s Markland in 1953, the first purpose built ship of this type.

It was estimated that over 1 million tons of raw materials would need to be moved from the various mills that Bowaters owned in Scandinavia, Canada and America, and to do this work a further seven ships were to be built between 1958 and 1961.

Bowaters also acquired two other ships the Liverpool Packet and the Markland when they purchased the Mersey Paper Co and these ships were integrated into the Bowater Steamship Co fleet by 1959.

In these early days Furness Withy were employed to manage the ships this responsability was later passed over to Cayzer Irvine and the British & Commonwealth Shipping Group after the death of Sir Eric in 1962.

Pre British & Commonwealth the Bowater Officers and crew were reputedly the highest paid crew in the British merchant navy with there wages some 37% higher than that of any other shipping company at the time. A berth on one Bowaters ships was very much sought after and once in their crew members signed on time and time again.

Many of the crew of the crew came from the Scotish Highlands and Isles in particular Barra, these men were hard seafaring people but also had a reputation for great camaraderie and it was not uncommon to see them after a hard days work gathered together with a few instruments playing folksongs. This feeling of camaraderie seemed to be infectious and through the years I have been contacting ex-Bowater crew members it comes through time and again, working for Bowaters was like being part of a big family.

After these management changes occurred the Officers and crews from the Bowater ships were fully intergrated into the B&C group which meant they had to sail on Clan Line and Union Castle ships, something not everybody was keen on doing,as this also changed the pay and conditions with which the men worked under. My Dad was very reluctant to sail on these other ships and his claim to fame is that he was the last Bowater Officer to do so. I think most officers and crew that eventually sailed on other B&C ships would admit now that there fears were unfounded.

So, what about the ships, there were two distinctive types, the smaller ones which were about 4000grt were generally known as the "Lakers" as most of there work was in and around the Great Lakes and the St.Lawrence Seaway the larger ones 7000grt plied there trade on the American Eastern Seaboard, U.K and Scandinavia.

They were all built to an extremely high specification Lloyds 100 A1 with notation"stregthened for ice class 3". They all had exceptional standards of officers and crews accommodation, there were also owners/guest suites, beautiful veeners in the Captains and Chief Engineers cabins, wood panelling in the Officers accommodation alleways.

The most notable thing of all was the unusual paint scheme which was Brunswick green with a light green boot topping and cream upperworks.The green boot topping was replaced with red oxide after a few years as it was very difficult to maintain.