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P&O Heritage Collection

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P&O Heritage Collection

P&O Heritage Collection, exists to preserve and celebrate over 188 years of maritime history

As our name suggests, P&O Heritage, exists to preserve and celebrate the maritime history and collections of P&O, one of the best known shipping companies in the world. Our website is our main port of call fro visitors and we have designed it to allow our collections - and the rich heritage of P&O - to be more accessible to the public, thereby continuing to keep alive the memory of the enormous contribution P&O has made to numerous people and countries around the world for over 175 years. Behind the scenes, the P&O Heritage Collection, which numbers over 30,000 items, is cared for by a small dedicated team of three: Curator, Digital Curator and Web editor and Conservator, based in European regional headquarters of DP World. Our vast and varied collections of archives and artefacts tell the story of P&O and the numerous shipping lines it acquired, including Orient Line, British India and many more. DP World acquired P&O in 2006 and today it takes great pride in its association with the venerable name of P&O. DP World is committed to the work of P&O Heritage and to preserving and protecting this unique collection for future generations.

16/10/2026

We recently received a donation including a complete album of P&O souvenir postcards from the 1890s, entitled ‘Story of the Voyage’. This vignette from the album, ‘Cricket on the voyage’ depicts ‘budding W G Graces’ playing an over or two on deck.

In fact, the real W G Grace travelled by P&O in 1873. He took his honeymoon on board MIRZAPORE (1871) with his wife Agnes – and the English cricket team. They were on their way to tour Australia, nine years before the Ashes began. The team finally arrived in Melbourne after 52 days at sea.

So began a long association between P&O and Orient Lines, and the Australian and English cricket teams. The last England team to travel by sea sailed on CANBERRA in 1964.

In 1985 players were reunited for a special cricket cruise. Pictured here are Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Colin Milburn, Ray Illingworth, Tom Graveney and Richard Hutton, playing a game on deck, just like the amateur players of nearly a century before.

Find out more about how P&O ships made cricketing history:

https://poheritage.com/story/howzat-cricketing-history

15/10/2026

P&O was never a family firm, but some families certainly made their mark on it.

Kenneth Mackay was the third Earl of Inchcape and grandson of the first Earl, James Lyle Mackay, who led P&O after the first world war.

In the 1950s, Kenneth Mackay consolidated his family’s interests into Inchcape and Company, (still a global company today), selling the venerable shipping agency Mackinnon Mackenzie & Co to P&O along the way.

He joined the board of P&O in 1951, but didn’t make waves until the early 1970s, when he led opposition to the company chairman Ford Geddes’ takeover bid for the construction firm Bovis. Geddes was ousted and promptly replaced by Mackay, putting an Inchcape at the helm of the company once again.

In a final twist of fate, Mackay and P&O did acquire Bovis two years later, for a fifth of the original asking price.

Explore the many shipping companies that made P&O on our website:

https://poheritage.com/resource-category/shipping-line/

11/10/2026

It’s the people not the ships, from the boardroom to the ticket office, who have made P&O.

William Currie became Chairman of the company on the eve of the second world war, in 1938, seeing the company through the war and beyond.

When the company emerged into the 1940s, it had lost nearly half its fleet and just under 1,000 members of staff. The world was changing too, as India (his home for many years), Pakistan, and other parts of the former British Empire won their independence.

But Currie embraced the challenge for over two decades, supervising the post-war transformation of P&O. He oversaw the construction and launch of CANBERRA, a brand new kind of ocean liner, before finally retiring in 1960 at the age of 76.

Currie is pictured here in December 1949 on the maiden voyage of HIMALAYA (1949), along with the rest of the ship’s company. It’s rather easier to pick him out in this photograph with his own portrait by Edward Halliday in 1960.

Find out more about the story of his remarkable ship in ‘CANBERRA - A Berth In History’ on our YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnLRaZ6QbBY

09/10/2026

When the first Lord Inchcape died suddenly in 1932, it was his son-in-law, Alexander Shaw, who was called on to take charge of the company and its board of directors.

The 1930s were a difficult time for global shipping. In the face of a depression in world trade, Shaw fought fiercely against competition from state-subsidised foreign shipping companies.

Like many other P&O chairmen and directors he was also a Liberal MP, for Kilmarnock, between 1915 and 1923. He went to the House of Lords when he became the second Baron Craigmyle on the death of his father in 1937.

This 1939 portrait of Craigmyle by the society painter Oswald Birley was painted just after Craigmyle was succeeded as Chairman by his deputy, William Currie.

Find out more about the history of P&O on our website:

https://poheritage.com/resource/po-steam-navigation-company/

05/10/2026

We have many oil paintings of P&O people in our collection, but there is something about a sketch which often captures the essence of its subject, particularly in the hands of a master portrait painter.

Sir Oswald Birley was a favourite of the Royal Family. He painted oil portraits of three successive monarchs including Queen Elizabeth II, as well as Winston Churchill, Mahatma Ghandi and P&O Chairman Lord Craigmyle.

in 1926, Birley was travelling to India on board P&O’s KAISAR-I-HIND (1914) when he drew this pensive pencil sketch of the ship’s Captain Manley.

Manley first sailed with P&O in 1891 on board PESHAWUR (1871) and rose to the rank of Commander in 1914. He joined KAISAR-I-HIND in 1923 and remained her Commander until he retired in 1929.

If you’re interested in researching the history of someone who worked for P&O, we have a guide for just that on our website:

https://poheritage.com/resource/researching-seafarers-and-merchant-seamen/

01/10/2026

It was Brodie McGhie Willcox’s business that was at the heart and start of it all.

When his ship and insurance brokers on London’s Lime Street took on a young Shetlander called Arthur Anderson as a clerk in 1815, they began a partnership leading to a business that continues today nearly two centuries on.

Willcox was one of P&O’s three founding directors when it was incorporated in 1840, a Managing Director from 1840 to 1854, and finally Chairman from 1858 to 1862.

Like Arthur Anderson, he also found time to be a Liberal MP, holding a seat in P&O’s port city Southampton, from 1847 until his untimely death in 1862.

This portrait by Thomas Dicksee was painted in 1850, one of a set of five depicting the founders of P&O.

Our archives are a treasure trove for historians interested in the company. You can access them at Royal Museums Greenwich.

https://poheritage.com/resource/researching-the-po-archives-at-royal-museums-greenwich/

29/09/2026

Not all the portraits in our collection are of chairmen and directors.

This painting in oils of Ernest French was painted by the Australian artist Dora McRae while travelling on board.

Ernest, known as ‘Froggie’ French was an Orient Line and P&O purser. He joined the Orient Line in 1948 as an Assistant Purser and made his way through the ranks.

He was the Tourist Purser on board ORIANA (1960) for her maiden voyage to Australia and California. He left P&O in 1974 but kept a keen interest in the company and its staff.

He was instrumental in the restoration and redisplay of the original ORIANA plaque panel on the new ORIANA (1995), which he presented to Queen Elizabeth II when she launched the ship in Southampton in 1995.

He wrote two books about his experiences working at sea and died at the age of 93 in 2019.

If you’re interested in researching the history of someone who worked for P&O, we have a guide for just that on our website:

https://poheritage.com/resource/researching-seafarers-and-merchant-seamen/

25/09/2026

It’s the people, not the ships, that made P&O. And some of them didn’t restrict themselves to the shipping business.

Thomas Sutherland started work for P&O at the age of 19 and devoted the whole of his business life to the company. But he still somehow found time to help launch another global company: HSBC.

Working for P&O in Hong Kong, in 1865 Sutherland saw the opportunity to create a new banking venture based on the same principles of cooperation as Chinese insurance companies. The local business community welcomed the opportunity and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was born.

In 1881 he became P&O’s Chairman, and in 1883 brokered a deal with the French owners of the Suez Canal to give British shipowners a larger stake in the running of the canal. It defused an international crisis, as well as scuppering British plans for a second canal.

By the time he stepped down in 1915, Sutherland had put in nearly 34 years at the head of the company and is still P&O’s longest-standing Chairman.

This portrait of Sutherland was painted by the American society portraitist John Singer Sargent in 1897. P&O also commissioned a copy of the portrait in 1964 and presented it to in their centenary year.

Take a closer look with the high-resolution zoom in our collections online:

https://poheritage.com/collections/71d5cd6f-ef35-3111-94ad-03055aefa0b5/

24/09/2026

Today is , organised by International Maritime Organization - IMO highlighting the journey from Policy to Practice, Powering Maritime Excellence.

These Orient Line menus from the 1950s were designed by David Cobb in a collectible series of ‘Ships of the World Through the Ages’ and celebrating the age of sail before steam.

21/09/2026

P&O is the people who made it, from the boardroom to the booking office.

James Lyle Mackay’s father was a captain, which gave him his interest in the sea. And it was his inheritance from his father that he invested in the shipping business.

In 1871 he joined the British India Steam Navigation Company and in 1874 moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata).

Mackay remained part of the ruling British business elite in India until the death of BI founder Sir William Mackinnon called him back to London in 1893 where he became Managing Director and then Chairman.

In 1911 he became Baron Inchcape of Strathnaver, a place that would also give its name to the first of P&O’s White Sisters or ‘Straths’, STRATHNAVER (1931).

When Sir Thomas Sutherland, P&O’s longest serving Chairman, was seeking his successor, he negotiated a merger between P&O and BI in 1914, installing Inchcape as Chairman of both companies.

After the end of the first world war and the loss of many ships, Inchcape rebuilt the fleet and seized every opportunity for growth. By the mid-1920s, P&O was the world’s largest shipping company.

This 1921 oil portrait by Philip de László shows Inchcape in his House of Lords robes and imperial decorations, showing how far he had come from his humble beginnings. His hand rests on a globe, a suitable picture of power and ambition.

See his portrait and many more in our collections online:

https://poheritage.com/collections/1ffde135-1532-33c5-b938-dcea912fd1c8/

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Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://www.poheritage.com/

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