The Fleets

Stoomvaart Maatschappij Insulinde, Amsterdam 1881-1886

There was the wish by several Amsterdam merchants to open a direct service from the Netherlands to the Netherlands Dutch Indies (Java) besides the already existing lines from the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland (SMN) of Amsterdam and the Rotterdamsche Lloyd. H.W. Meyer of the shipbroker company Meyer & Co. approached its relations J.W. Adamson and Th. Ronaldson (shipowners and shipbrokers in London).
Adamson and Ronaldson were allured by the fact that the freight rates from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies were higher than those of United Kingdom to British India and in 1880, the time seemed favourable due to an important increase of freight especially the quantity of shipped coffee strongly increased.
On 24 September 1881 the N.V. Stoomvaart Maatschappij Insulinde with a capital of 2,4 million Dutch guilder (of which Fl. 600,000 placed) was founded. Most capital originated from the English participants. The Company started the service with two of Adamson and Ronaldson ships taken over, the Edinburgh and the Mercedes. The Edinburgh was renamed AMSTERDAM and the Mercedes C. FELLINGER.

Stoomvaart Maatschappij Insulinde adopted cargo tariffs which were 25 per cent lower than those of the SMN and the Rotterdamsche Lloyd. The two shipping companies decided thus also to adopt cargo against the same tariffs as the Insulinde. With that a freight war on the Netherlands East India route was started and by October 1881 the tariffs had even decreased by 50 per cent.
In January 1882 the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Insulinde had a shortage of ships and there was dispute between Executive Board and Council of commissioners Meyer and Adamson & Ronaldson about chartering of foreign tonnage. On 24 March 1882 H.W. Meyer and Adamson & Ronaldson withdrew from Stoomvaart Maatschappij Insulinde board, but stayed on as shipbrokers to the company.
The new board decided to order four new cargo ships with a restricted first class passenger accomodation for twelve persons; with those four ships a regular monthly service could be maintained. Two ships were ordered from the British yard of Raylton, Dixon & Co. (the MACASSAR and PADANG) and two ships were ordered from the Dutch yard Koninklijke Fabriek van Stoom & Andere Werktuigen of Amsterdam (KONING WILLEM III and the NEDERLAND EN ORANJE.)
They were four identical iron steam ships and had an accommodation for 12 first class and 12 second class passengers.

The monthly service was supposed to begin in July 1883, but due the late delivery of the new ships this had to be postponed until August and September. In the meantime, the service maintained by chartered foreign ships.
In March of that same year the SMN, Rotterdamsche Lloyd and the Insulinde reached an agreement, as a result of which the competition between the Dutch shipping companies slightly diminished.
The SMN and the Rotterdamsche Lloyd had adapted their schedules and started a ten days service to the Dutch East Indies, the SMN led the service by means of Marseille instead of Naples.

In the second half of 1883 the four newly built ships came in service for the Insulinde. On 7 October 1883 the company got authorisation to write off 5% obligation loans of Fl. 900,000 to order a new ship by Raylton, Dixon & Co. and on 15 May 1884 the JACARTA was delivered from the yard of Raylton, Dixon & Co.

1884 was a year with very low freight rates for the company; the low freight turnovers, the rising cost of coal, extra port money and higher insurance premiums together with the loss on 1 February 1885 of the NEDERLAND EN ORANJE was for the Executive Board reason to hold an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on 11 March 1885 and to reorganize the company.
The loss over 1884 amounted to Fl. 168,165.49 guilder and in March 1885 the total loss had already run to Fl. 207,346.61 guilder and with the enormous depreciation on the ships, amounted to the total loss a million guilders.
This amount of loss was too much for the company and on 1 April 1886 the board decided to liquidate the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Insulinde and the remaining ships were sold.

Many thanks to Henk Jungerius and Ted Finch for their assistance in collecting this data. The following list was extracted from various sources. This is not an all inclusive list but should only be used as a guide. If you would like to know more about a vessel, visit the Ship Descriptions (onsite) or Immigrant Ship web site.

• Route:
  • Amsterdam-London-Pauillac-Padang-Batavia (Djakarta)

Funnel: Black. Fleet:

TheShipsList | Return to The Fleets

TheShipsList®™ - (Swiggum) All Rights Reserved - Copyright © 1997-present
These pages may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without written consent of .
Last updated: October 30, 2007 and maintained by and M. Kohli