BW143

Severn Carrying Company Limited

Description

Records of the Severn Carrying Company Limited: records relating to pensions 1939-1949, booklet nd [1950], plans of premises 1945-1946.

Date

1939-1950

Reference code

BW143

Access Status

These records are available immediately for research

Administrative / Biographical history

The Severn Carrying Company came into being when the Severn & Canal Carrying Company Limited decided to shorten its name due to the decline in canal traffic. During the Second World War, the Government decided to control the supply and distribution of all petroleum products. Colonel Hinman, manager of the Regent Oil Company's Severn operations, was appointed area manager. All the tankers belonging to carriers, including the Severn Carrying Company, were brought under his control. Post-war, the tankers reverted back to their owners. This experience of unified control had advantages and nationalisation of the Sharpness New Docks & Gloucester & Birmingham Navigation Company, and hence its subsidiary the Severn Carrying Company, was inevitable. Due to this, in 1947 Lyon & Lyon Limited (the holding company for John Harker Ltd) bought a controlling interest in the Severn Carrying Company and their interest in the Gloucester Shipyard Limited. Mr G L Lyon was appointed chairman. In 1948 the British Transport Commission: Docks & Inland Waterways Executive (DIWE) took control of the Sharpness New Docks & Gloucester & Birmingham Navigation Company and Severn Carrying Company. The Docks & Inland Waterways Executive's shares in the Severn Carrying Company were then sold to Lyon & Lyon Limited, who then wholly owned the subsidiary. The Severn Carrying Company was merged completely with Harkers and the Severn Carrying Company itself wound up. For more information on the Severn Carrying Company see Alan H Falkner's 'Severn & Canal and Cadburys' (Robert Wilson, 1981) and Edward Paget-Tomlinson's 'The Illustrated History of Canals & River Navigations'.

System of arrangement

It has not been possible to ascertain any original structure of record-keeping from the small number of records held for this company. The fonds has therefore been arranged in chronological order.