[citation needed] Elder Dempster and Company began its commercial activities on 1 October 1868,[2] when John Dempster made it his business to circularise all potential customers: "I beg to inform you that this Company intend to dispatch, early in January next, the first of their line of Steamers, at present being constructed on the Clyde for trading between Glasgow, Liverpool and the West Coast of Africa.

"The Steamers are to sail monthly, and the ports which it is intended shall be called at are Sierra Leone, Cape Palmas, Cape Coast Castle, Accra, Lagos, Benin Bonny, Old Calabar and Fernando Po, but should sufficient inducement offer, arrangements will be made for their calling at other ports, either on the outward or homeward voyages.

The Steamers are being specially built for the African Trade and, besides being comfortably fitted up for passengers, they will have extensive cargo space, which will enable them to carry rough goods at moderate rates.

[6] In the Second World War the company lost a number of ships to enemy action, including both Accra[7] and Apapa[8] in 1940 and Abosso[9] in 1942.

[citation needed] Among its passengers were students from British colonies such as the Gold Coast and Nigeria awarded imperial scholarships to study at Oxford and Cambridge universities, such as the Gold Coast student PK Owusu, on his way to study English literature at Queens College, Cambridge in 1944.

In 1967 the six day war closed the Suez Canal causing Henderson's service to Burma ceased and their last three ships transferred to Elder Dempster routes.

The end for the Elder Dempster Lines name came in 1989 when it was bought by the French firm Delmas-Vieljeux, although the company continued as a shipping agents until 2000 when it was wound up.

E. D. Morel, the main activist in the movement to expose the abuses of Leopold in his private colony, first realized the discrepancy in value trade goods being sent to the Congo while working for Dempster.