The brothers Charles and Alfred Booth became shipowners and traders when their schooner rigged iron hulled steamer Augustine of 1,106 grt sailed from Liverpool on 15th February 1866 for the North Brazilian ports of Para (Belem), seventy five miles from the open sea on the mouth of the Amazon, Ceara (Fortaleza) and Maranham (Sao Luis do Maranhao), the latter port about 450 kilometres southeast of the mouth of the Amazon. The Booth Steamship Co. Ltd. was set up fifteen years later on 24th June 1881, with a service from New York to North Brazilian ports beginning a year later. Outward cargo was generals and machinery, with hardwoods, Brazil nuts, jute, primary tropical products and rubber homeward, and if insufficient homeward cargo offered, a call was made at Galveston in Texas to load cotton.

Red Cross Iquitos Line

In 1901, the Red Cross Iquitos Line, which had services further up the Amazon to Iquitos in Peru and had been formed by r. Singleton & Company of Liverpool in 1869, was absorbed. Two years later, the Maranham Steamship Company was acquired and by its association with the Iquitos Steamship Company it was possible for Booth Line ships to reach Manaus, one thousand miles up the Amazon, and Iquitos in Peru, two thousand miles up the Amazon and load passengers and cargo. The Singleton colours of a red cross on a central white band on a black funnel were changed to an all black funnel. It is interesting that the Whitby tramp company of Rowland & Marwood’s Steamship Co. Ltd. used the same funnel colours and houseflag, but were forced in 1934 to change to a blue cross to avoid infringement with the international Red Cross symbol.

A big fleet of 26 steamers on the outbreak of war in August 1914 lost seven of their number to enemy action, including the second Hilary of 6,329 grt. She was torpedoed and sunk to the west of the Shetland Islands by U88 on 25th May 1917 while serving as an armed Merchant Cruiser. in 1920, the family run company included Sir Alfred Booth, Charles Booth and George M. Booth as directors on the Board, with other members of the family as office managers in the Cunard Building at Liverpool, one of three ‘graces’ that form the backdrop to the Liverpool Pierhead. The war had reduced trade to Brazil and her export of rubber now fell as the wartime demand fell away. The result was that Booth Line did not have to replace lost ships as a matter of urgency. Competition from Lamport & Holt, who had previously served Southern Brazil from Liverpool and New York, intensified with their calls at Para and other ports of the Amazon delta. In retaliation, Booth Line ships traded coastwise towards Southern Brazil, especially out of Eastern Seaboard ports of the U.S.A.

The big Booth Line fleet in 1920 consisted of nineteen deep sea steamers, fourteen tugs, 133 lighters, four hulks, one launch and one dredger. This big coastal and river fleet was employed on the North Brazilian coastal routes and on the Amazon, while the tug fleet towed the lighters and barges on the Amazon, which flows at a steady five or six knots. The deep sea passenger and cargo fleet included five passenger and cargo steamers that sailed one thousand miles up and one thousand miles down the Amazon from Manaus, and then sailed out of port at Para to make the long homeward voyage. Outward calls from Liverpool were made at Vigo, Leixoes, Lisbon and Madeira with garland, Laidley & Company as company agents, and there was also a direct service to North Brazilian ports from London, Hamburg, Antwerp and Le Havre by other steamers.

Hilary

However, the withdrawal of the passenger and cargo steamer Anselm of 5,450 grt in 1922 after seventeen years of service, left only one big passenger and cargo steamer in the fleet, Hildebrand of 6,995 grt built at Greenock by Scotts in 1911. Hildebrand had accommodation for 307 First Class passengers and four hundred in Third Class. Accordingly, an order was placed in 1930 with the Cammell, Laird yard at Birkenhead for a liner of 7,403 grt with accommodation for 80 First Class and 250 Third Class passengers. She was launched as the third Hilary on 17th April 1931 and completed four months later and could carry 5,750 tonnes of cargo. She had an overall length of 442 feet, beam of 56.2 feet, depth of 34.2 feet, and a maximum draft of 24.8 feet. She had three continuous decks, with Promenade Deck and Boat Deck ‘midships, and a long fo’c’stle of length 81 feet extending back to the foremast. She cost £219,000 to build and was noted for her distinctive and much admired three note chime siren that blew a musical ‘chord’.

Hilary had nine transverse bulkheads and five holds and hatches, ten derricks on two tall masts and a set of posts immediately in front of the bridge. She had a slightly raked stem, counter stern with a black hull and funnel. First Class single cabins were on the Promenade Deck, two and three berth First Class cabins were on the Upper Deck, while four ‘luxury’ cabins had their own private bathroom and toilet. The First Class Drawing room and Lounge were at the forward end of Promenade Deck, with the First Class Smoking room and Verandah Café at the aft end. The elegant double height First Class Dining room had seating for 92 passengers and accompanying officers, and was on the Main Deck. The Third Class accommodation was mostly for Portuguese emigrants travelling to the North Brazilian areas and up the Amazon. They were accommodated in two and four berth cabins on Main Deck, and the Third Class Dining room had seating for 124 passengers, necessitating two sittings. The Master and Navigating officers were accommodated at the forward end of Boat Deck, while the stewards and crew were forward on both Main Deck and Upper Deck.

Hilary was fitted with anhydrous carbide refrigerated machinery in one chamber of 82,000 cubic feet insulated by brine granulated cork, the system was installed by the Liverpool refrigeration Co. Ltd. The navigating bridge had the latest equipment including electric direction finders, magnetic compasses and radio transmitters, and electric lighting was installed throughout the vessel. The engine room was fitted with a triple expansion steam engine and a low pressure Bauer-Wach exhaust turbine with double reduction gearing and hydraulic coupling. The latter took the exhaust steam from the low pressure turbine of the main engine, and was only used for forward motion. There were five single ended boilers burning coal, each with three furnaces, and working at 230 psi under forced draught and with superheaters, to give a service speed of fourteen knots.

Amazon Cruises on Hilary

Hilary soon settled in her normal voyage routine, with Hildebrand retired after Hilary had been in service for a year. Passengers enjoyed deck tennis and sitting on the shady promenade areas during the voyage through the tropics. At Para, which is not on the Amazon but is 75 miles from the mouth of the great river on the Rio Guama, passengers could transfer to the grand Hotel at no extra cost. Electric trams ran from the docks to the fringes of the jungle, and the nearby attractions were the fine Teatro de Paz opera House with columned porticoes and loggias, the colourful Ver o Peso (See or Weigh) fish market and formerly the Posto Fiscal (Customs House), the Cathedral and governor’s Palace, and many other public buildings of Portuguese architecture.

The Amazon cruise was marketed by Booth Line as the ‘Forest Cruise’, and this was particularly apt for more than the first hundred miles as Hilary followed the winding river in a densely forested area of islands with the channel only slightly wider than the Thames at Maidenhead. Beyond this section, the river widened, and at Monte Alegre a range of flat topped mountains appeared. Near Santarem, the bottle green water of the Rio Tapajos flowed side by side with the yellow water of the Amazon for many miles. Santarem was formerly a rubber boom town and had many beautiful colonial buildings and a big cathedral near the docks, and marked the half way point of the one thousand mile cruise from Para to Manaus.

Some eighty miles beyond Santarem, the little town of Obidos came into view situated on high cliffs. It was named after the equally beautiful walled town of Obidos in Portugal to the north of Lisbon, and near to Santarem. Parintins and Itacoatiara were passed before Hilary turned into the mighty Rio Negro with its black water contrasting with the yellow water of the Amazon, and after many more miles she berthed at Manaus in front of the Alfandega (Customs House), built by the British of brick in the grand imperial style. Nearby were the floating docks also built by the British for the repair of river steamers. Manaus was the centre of the rubber industry in the first decade of the 20th century, and became very wealthy and was the first city in Brazil to have electric lights and trolley buses. The grand domed Teatro Amazonas opera House, with a cream coloured three storey façade, had remained when many of the other buildings had fallen into disrepair. Hilary stayed at Manaus for four or five days to give passengers plenty of time to explore the town e.g. the English Club and the area e.g. the Taruna Falls and the Rio Solimoes with its many giant lily species.

A large fifty feet rise and fall of the river between seasons at Manaus, and in the nearby Anavilhanas, the largest river archipelago of islands in the world, uncovered a labyrinth of forested glades alongside the white sandy beaches and the inky black waters of the Rio Negro. Manaus is located on the Rio Negro a few miles before it meets the Rio Solimoes to form the Amazon proper. The two rivers flow side by side for many miles, different in colour but mixing in eddies. The gradient of this the greatest of all rivers is so slight that the bed of the Amazon is actually below sea level at Manaus. On arrival back at Para at the end of the return voyage, passengers were taken on an arranged excursion to the pretty little seaside resort of Chapeo Virado to enjoy sea bathing. In contrast to Manaus, the sea-sonal rise and fall of the river at Para is only a dozen feet, with the Atlantic shores tidal by only three feet.

Hilary was joined on the Amazon cruises by another smaller but similar First Class Booth Line passenger ship in 1935, Anselm of 5,954 grt, from the Denny yard at Dumbarton but she was tragically sunk by U-boat after being converted to a troopship in January 1940. Anselm was on a voyage from Gourock to Freetown with 1,210 troops and 98 crew members when the torpedo struck in the North Atlantic, with the tragic loss of 250 troops and four crew members.

World War II Career Of Hilary

Hilary, on the other hand, had an eventful and glamorous war career, becoming the flagship of Admiral Sir Philip Vian, and of Commodore G. N.Oliver on several invasions as a Headquarters Ship. Hilary arrived at South Shields in October 1940 for conversion into an armed Boarding vessel, and after commissioning into the royal Navy on the Tyne on 24th January 1941, she sailed for the North Atlantic. She intercepted the Italian tanker Recco owned by AGIP 350 miles north of the Azores on 3rd May 1941 but her crew scuttled her. She then captured two Italian tankers acting as Italian submarine supply ships on 10th May 1941 to the north of Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. Under a prize crew from Hilary, one of these vessels, Gianna M of 5,612 grt owned by Cia Italian Trasporti Oli Minerali of Genoa, was safely brought into Belfast and renamed Empire Control and served the allies until the end of the war.

A year later in 1942, Hilary was back under her owners management but under Ministry of War Transport orders in the North Atlantic. Hilary was a lucky ship for on 8th October 1942 a torpedo struck her in the engine room but failed to explode and she managed to make New York safely. A bigger conversion to an infantry Landing Ship (LSI) followed at Birkenhead from March 1943 with her ten lifeboats replaced by six large landing craft.

This was Hilary’s finest hour after she arrived in the Mediterranean at Algiers, for on 10th July 1943 she became headquarters ship under Admiral Sir Philip Vian for the invasion of Sicily, operation Husky. She was at the head of convoy KMF 18 carrying the 1st Canadian Division and the 2nd royal Marines Commandos. She moved on to the landings at Salerno in September 1943 as Commodore Ship of the Northern attack Force under Commodore G. N. Oliver. Further fame came her way again at the Normandy landings on 23rd June 1944 when Admiral Sir Philip Vian transferred his flag to her after his cruiser Scylla had been damaged by a mine. Just before the end of the war, Hilary began a major refit at the yard of her builders and was handed back to Booth Line. This refit changed her passenger capacities to 93 First Class and 138 Tourist Class passengers and her public rooms were updated after four years of use by thousands of troops.

A useful change to oil fuel burning in 1949 with the Booth houseflag added to her funnel was followed by her last refit in 1956 at Antwerp, from which she emerged as a white hulled liner, the only Booth passenger ship to have this colour of hull. This helped her cruise earning potential on the Amazon, as well as Caribbean calls at Barbados and Trinidad, and a series of three voyages on charter to Elder Dempster Lines to West Africa. However, on 19th September 1959, she sailed from the Mersey for the last time under her own steam for the breakers yard at Inverkeithing of Thomas W. Ward Ltd. She was unfortunately damaged at the breakers yard by a heavy explosion onboard the Swedish vessel Saint Gobain, owned by Malmros, being dismantled alongside her. Hilary had given 28 years of exemplary service to her owners and her country, and had become the best known Booth Line passenger ship.

Hildebrand and Hubert

Booth Line had been sold to the Vestey family in 1946, thus eliminating competition with Lamport & Holt and Blue Star Line to South America. Fleet interchanges began to take effect even though Booth Line, Lamport & Holt and Blue Star Line had their own spheres of influence. Booth Line maintained their U.K. and East Coast U.S.A. ports service to Northern Brazil and the Amazon, but ships were also transferred within the Vestey group when tax benefits arose. An example was the depreciation allowance against Corporation Tax, transferring the ownership of a vessel could use up surplus amounts of depreciation which otherwise would have been forfeited.

Two near sister ‘H’ class passenger ships were then ordered from the Cammell Laird yard at Birkenhead for the Amazon passenger service to Manaus, ‘H’ names now were officially allocated to passenger ships of Booth Line. They were turbine powered passenger and cargo steamships of overall length 439 feet, beam of 60.3 feet and depth of 34.6 feet with a draft of 24.5 feet, with accommodation for 75 First Class passengers and one hundred Tourist Class passengers. They had a topgallant fo’c’stle. Poop and long Bridge Deck structures ‘midships. The Upper and Main Decks were continuous throughout the vessels, and there was also a Lower Deck except in number five hold. A minor difference between the sisters was that Hubert was given an Orlop Deck in numbers two and three holds. The cellular double bottom was subdivided into seven tanks fore and aft, four of which were for fuel oil, one for feed water and two for domestic fresh water. A deep tank for fuel oil was fitted forward of the machinery spaces, and also at the tunnel sides in number five hold. Deep tanks for liquid vegetable oil were constructed at the sides of number four hold and the shaft tunnel. The fore and aft peaks were used for water ballast.

First Class single and double berth cabins were on the Boat, Promenade, Upper and Main Decks, with most having adjoining bathrooms and mechanical ventilation and electric radiator heaters. The First Class Dining room was at the forward end of Upper Deck. The wood panelled First Class Lounge opened on to a large verandah on Promenade Deck, and the First Class Smoking room was also on Promenade Deck, and the children’s playroom on Boat Deck. The hairdresser was at the aft end of Upper Deck, along with a well equipped laundry with ironing rooms. Tourist Class two and four berth cabins were aft on the Main Deck and Upper Deck and in the poop. The Tourist Class Dining room was on Main Deck, and the Lounge and Smoking room on the poop deck. The Hospital for Tourist Class was at the aft of the vessels, while that for First Class and the crew was in the Main Deck ‘tween spaces.

The Master and Navigating officers were accommodated on the navigating bridge and on Boat Deck, and for the Engineering officers and the rest of the crew on ‘midships Main Deck. The navigating equipment included electric direction finders, Master gyrocompass on the bridge with two repeaters (one for steering and one on the monkey island), echo sounding gear but crucially no radar. galleys, pantries, bakeries and other culinary equipment were also on Main Deck, with refrigerated and general storerooms on Lower Deck. There were six lifeboats, one of which was motor driven, handled by luffing davits and winches capable of lowering them in the most adverse conditions.

Cargo handling gear consisted of a dozen tubular steel derricks on the foremast and two centre line stump masts of five and ten tonnes capacity, with a heavy lift derrick of fifty tonnes capacity on the foremast to lift trunks of Amazonian hardwoods. A dozen cargo winches, an electric windlass and mooring winch, and electrohydraulic steering gear controlled by telemotor from the bridge and by wheel and gears from the docking bridge completed the equipment. The main engines consisted of a set of two cylinder steam turbines driving the single screw through interleaved double reduction helical gearing. The sisters had one astern turbine incorporated in the ahead low pressure casing. Two Babcock & Wilcox boilers produced steam at 450 psi and burnt oil under forced draught, with a Cochran oil burning boiler for use while berthed in harbour. Diesel generators provided electric current for all of the auxiliary equipment.

Hildebrand was launched on 20th July 1951 and sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to Leixoes, Lisbon, Para and Manaus on 28th December 1951. She introduced the Booth Line houseflag on her Thornycroft funnel, and as delivered had black vents around her funnel area but these were later removed and white fan vents installed. She represented Booth Line at the Spithead Coronation review of 260 ships on 15th June, 1953.

Loss of the Hildebrand

Hildebrand sailed from Liverpool at 1000 hours on 22nd September 1957 with 2,840 tonnes of general cargo, 164 passengers of which seventeen passengers were taking a short cruise to Lisbon, and 98 crew bound for Para and Manaus with calls at Leixoes, Lisbon and Trinidad. The call at Leixoes was omitted after a radio telephone call from her owners was received. A course was steered inside of the Burling islands off Peniche on the coast of Portugal at 0640 hours on 25th September. The Master took over on the bridge from the Second officer at 0700 hours, and a number of D/F bearings were then obtained of the radio beacons on Cape Espichel and Cape Carvoeiro but not of Cape Roca as the ship proceeded down the Portuguese coast. Fog was then encountered at 0946 hours and the engines were put at half speed and the shore fog signal was heard by the Master and the Second officer. Low lying fog covered the shoreline but the Master and the Second officer saw high land above the fog. Hildebrand stranded at 1014 hours on rocks about 1 mile east of Cape Raso in Cascais Bay at a speed of 9 knots as she began a series of alterations to port to pick up the pilot to enter the Tagus River.

The Court of Enquiry at the India Buildings in Liverpool covered three days from 22nd February 1958 and examined the courses steered and speeds of Hildebrand in great detail during her last three hours. The cause of the stranding was ascertained as the complete failure of the Master, Capt. Thomas Edward Williams, to appreciate the position of his vessel and his wrongful actions during her last three hours on the approach into Lisbon. His Certificate of Competency as a Master was suspended for a period of one year. No lives were lost after the stranding, with the passengers disembarked at 1400 hours into small craft, and all crew except for a volunteer party of fourteen crew members at 1600 hours. The tugs Herakles (Bothen) and EM Z Svitzer (Svitzer) had attempted to save Hildebrand but no avail, and Hildebrand, a fine and nearly new passenger cargo-liner was declared a constructive total loss on 28th October 1957.

Career of Hubert

Hubert was launched on 31st August 1954 as a sister to Hildebrand but amended slightly in the light of experience. She had refrigerated capacity for 46,000 cubic feet of bananas, and at 8,062 grt was the largest ever vessel ordered by Booth Line. She ran her trials in early January 1955 and sailed from the King’s Dock at Liverpool on her maiden voyage on 11th February 1955. Ports of call were Leixoes if cargo offered, Lisbon, Madeira, Barbados, Trinidad, Fortaleza, Para (Belem) followed by a cruise up the Amazon to Manaus. Hubert made this round trip in two and one half months, and thus achieved five round trips per year before her annual refit. Passengers loved these long distance exotic cruises, and were loyal to the ship until well after the introduction of airliners to Para, Rio de Janeiro and other South American cities.

Fortunately, the much loved Hilary was in Liverpool at the time of the loss of Hildebrand in September 1957, and she immediately sailed for Para and Manaus to cover the gap in Booth Line services. A stay of execution for Hilary from the breakers yard enabled her to sail on for another two years. Hubert then carried on the last traditional passenger service from September 1959 to the Amazon of Booth Line with, as a running mate, Anselm (4), the former Thysville of CMB of Belgium, from 1961. Thysville had been built by the Cockerill yard at Hoboken near Antwerp in 1950, and little changes were made to her by Booth Line as she had the same accommodation for 135 First Class passengers and 101 Tourist Class passengers and served Booth Line to the Amazon until 1963.

The service was declared uneconomic in 1964, and Hubert arrived back at Liverpool on 1st October 1964 at the end of her last Amazon cruise. She was then transferred within the Vestey group to Blue Star Line and chartered out to Austasia Ltd., another member of the group, for services from Singapore to Australia. Full air conditioning was installed throughout the ship, and her funnel was painted white with a black top and a large ‘a’ within a thin black circle. She was renamed Malaysia for these Far Eastern services, and after suffering engine trouble at Durban on the voyage out to Australia in January 1965, she gave good service for twelve years until sold in 1976. Ports of call were Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Port Moresby, Singapore, Malacca, Penang and Port Swettenham. However, from 1972 she was switched to sail from West Coast Australian ports starting from Fremantle and including Geraldton, Onslow, Dampier, Broome and Darwin to South East Asian ports. After conversion into a cattle carrier she was renamed Khalij Express by the atlas Shipping agency Ltd., Singapore and sailed on voyages from Fremantle in Australia to Jeddah or the Persian Gulf. She sailed from Sharjah on 23rd May 1984 for Bombay and then moved north and was run aground at full speed at Alang on the coast of India for breaking up.

Postscript

Hilary and Hubert had long careers of 28 and 30 years respectively, while that of Hildebrand was tragically cut short at only 6 years. Booth Line had been carrying passengers to the Northern coast of Brazil since 1866 and to Amazonian ports of Santarem, Obidos and Manaus since 1901. Thus, after almost a century of passenger carrying, the service became cargo only until the last sailings from Liverpool to Para were made in 1986 by the sisters Benedict (4) and Boniface (4). This pair of 5,200 dwt had been built for Booth Line in 1979 at Rio de Janeiro as their first new ships in sixteen years. Two further ships of 6,025 dwt, Clement (4) and Crispin (5), were chartered by Booth Line for six years from 1986 to 1992 to serve the route from Heysham or New York to Para (Belem). The long and distinguished story of Booth Line was at an end.

Booth Line ships were named after well known saints e.g. the venerable Bede of Jarrow and Monkwearmouth (672-735), the first writer to accurately date Christian writings from the birth of Christ. Saint Hilary (c300-c368) was Bishop of Poitiers in France, his name coming from the Latin word for happy or cheerful. He was the pre-eminent Latin writer of the fourth century, and his name is celebrated today in Hilary Term of Oxford University, beginning in early January each year. Saint Hildebrand was born as Hildebrand of Sovana in Italy but is better known as Pope Gregory VII from 1073 until his death in 1085. Saint Hubert (c656-c727) became Bishop of Liege in 708 and had been born as the heir apparent of the Duke of Aquitaine. He was known as the apostle of the Ardennes, and his name was called upon in the early 20th century to cure rabies through the use of the traditional St. Hubert’s Key. This was a metal cross that when heated was pressed to the area of a person bitten by a dog with rabies, causing the wound to be sterilised and cauterized.

Today, the port of Para (Belem) is administered by the Compania Docas de Para (CDP), one of more than forty Brazilian ports administered by the Brazilian government. The only exception is the iron ore port of Imbituba, situated between Rio Grande and Santos, which is privately administered. Things have certainly changed since the Booth and Singleton families of Liverpool first ventured up the mighty Amazon in the early 1860s