Khedivial Mail S.S. Company was a steam ship company that ran ships from
Alexandria, Egypt
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
. The exact date of its creation is unknown although it was most likely created during the latter half of the 1800s.
The company was a successor to the Medjidieh, a steamship company that operated in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, created by
Said Pasha. The Medjidieh was also referred to as the Egyptian Steam Navigation Company, and quickly failed under the leadership of Said Pasha. His successor,
Isma'il Pasha
Isma'il Pasha ( ar, إسماعيل باشا ; 12 January 1830 – 2 March 1895), was the Khedive of Egypt and conqueror of Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of Great Britain. Sharing the ambitious outlook of his gran ...
, restarted the venture in May 1863 in the hopes of creating a merchant marine for the modernizing Egyptian nation. After falling into debt, Ismail used the company as leverage to try to gain control of and merge with the Egyptian Commercial and Trading Company, a European trading firm based in Egypt, in order to become a player in European financial markets.
[Landes, David (1958). Bankers and Pashas: International Finance and Economic Imperialism in Egypt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 194] The venture was unsuccessful, and the merger never appeared.
The company was renamed in 1898 as the Khedivial Mail S.S. Company and it sailed under the British Flag, as part of
the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. It continued to operate and expand well into the first half of the 1900s, later adopting shipping routes that would bring its ships to the United States. Although traditionally the company sailed its ships to ports in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
, the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
and other ports on the eastern side of the Mediterranean.
The company once again changed its name to the Pharonic Mail Line in 1936, and was finally nationalized by the Egyptian government in 1961 into the
United Arab Maritime Company.
References
{{reflist
External links
Cruiselinehistory.comwww.theshipslist.com
Shipping companies of Egypt
Defunct shipping companies of the United Kingdom