About this lot

Description

E J Cobb, 19th Century, Portrait of John B Verel, signed oil on porcelain. Provenance: The sitter and thence by descent to his daughter Marjory, the vendor's paternal great-grandmother. In 1873 William H Raeburn and Captain Dunn started a shipping company called Dunn and Raeburn with a fleet of good-sized steamers. John B Vérel replaced Captain Dunn in 1880 and the company was named Raeburn and Vérel. The fleet was varied: trading to the Spanish ports and trading from the Clyde to the likes of Buenos Aires, San Nicholas and London. The DEHLI and the BONNINGTON regularly traded in the Far Eastern ports. At the turn of the century the fleet consisted of twelve steamers mostly named after royal palaces. In 1902 Raeburn and Vérel formed the Monarch Steamship Company Ltd with a new steamer BRITISH MONARCH. By 1911 the company had 9 steamers conforming to the same naming system. The fleet lost six ships during World War 1. The last ship the BRITISH MONARCH (5) was sold to Greece in 1973 and the Monarch flag disappeared from the seven seas.

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