Coast Lines Limited provided shipping services in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Channel Islands from 1917 to 1971.
[1] Powell, Bacon and Hough Lines Ltd was formed in 1913 in Liverpool.
[3] In 1931, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was dissolved after an accounting scandal which led to the imprisonment of chairman Lord Kylsant for misrepresenting the state of the company to shareholders.
[4] Coast Lines achieved independence under the chairmanship of Sir Alfred Read (1871–1955), who had previously built up the family shipping business of F. H. Powell & Co., and then been managing director of Coast Lines from 1917.
[5] From 1917 to 1951, Coast Lines acquired a controlling interest in a large number of coastal shipping companies, eventually numbering about twenty, of which the most important were: By 1951, the company operated a fleet of 109 ships, which carried over four million tons of cargo, over half a million head of livestock, and more than a million passengers.