The Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij ((Netherlands Steamboat Co)), abbreviated as NSM or NSBM, was a Dutch shipping line focused on inland navigation.

[1] Van Vollenhoven, Dutilh en Co. was a company established to create a shipping line between Moerdijk and the Dordtsche Kil.

[2][3] De Nederlander was the first Dutch steam vessel, even though her 40 hp engines were made by Maudslay, At the time, the plan was to establish a line between Rotterdam and Antwerp.

On 3 June 1823 De Nederlander was to make her first trip from Rotterdam to Antwerpen via Dordrecht, Willemstad, Ooltgensplaat, Zijpe (Bruinisse), Wemeldinge, Gorishoek (Tholen) and Bath.

Roentgen became the executive for materiel and the engineer of the company directeur van het materieel en werktuigkundige.

The supervisory board was made up of: C. De Jong van Rodenburgh; Jonkheer A.C. Twent; mr. J.K. Sontag; J.C. Baud; John Cockerill; and J.A.

One of King William's many projects to re-establish the economy of the Netherlands, was the establishment of a solid coal and iron industry near Liège.

John Cockerill & Cie would build the engines for the next NSM boats based on those of De Nederlander.

[16] It is interesting that the original design of De Stad Nijmegen called for an iron hull vlak with wooden planking.

These were: [24] On 26 October 1824 De Zeeuw had steamed to Cologne in order to reconnoiter the Rhine up to that place for the iron Keulenaar of 100 hp, which was under construction.

In spite of the failure of the projected boat, NSM had a line between Rotterdam, Nijmegen, Düsseldorf and Cologne operational in July 1825.

On 3 October 1825 the Preußisch-Rheinische Dampfschiffahrt-Gesellschaft (PRDG) was founded by merchants from Cologne, headed by Peter Heinrich Merkens.

[31] The reason for the unexpected success of the Batavier line was that a single company offered transport from places up the Rhine to London and back.

Some changes were then made to Hercules, so she could carry cargo herself, and tow 4-6 sailboats upstream to Emmerich am Rhein or even Düsseldorf.

In 1823 the Dutch East Indies governor general Godert van der Capellen asked for two steamships to combat piracy.

It agreed to buy half of the shares of Cockerill's machine factory in Seraing, if he would end his contract with NSM.

As stated above, NSM, PRDG and DGRM had created a comfortable quasi-monopoly for steam shipping on the Rhine.

The companies had agreed about their interests in shipping on the Rhine, and representatives of PRDG were regularly present at NSM shareholder meetings.

[32] In 1836 NSM made a contract with the Ministry for National Industry (Departement voor de Nationale Nijverheid) about towage upstream of Lobith.

NSM's barge towage came in strong competition with the Kölner Dampfschleppschifffahrts Gesellschaft and the company from Mainz.

The austerity program, and the repayment of loans had caused that its ships had not been properly maintained, and that some boats had not been replaced in time.

The year was definitely ruined when big repairs on Ludwig and Antwerpen forced NSM to use the very inefficient and uncomfortable No.

[64] In September 1850 the manager of NSM declared that with the boats he had at his disposal, it would not possible to make a profit on the Rhine.

Shipping on the Rhine now became rather profitable again, and so the shallow draft steamboats Nederlander and Rijnlander were ordered for a fast line between Cologne and Mainz.

By using ever more efficient boats, and offering ever more departures, the partnership got to dominate the market for passenger traffic on the Rhine.

On 31 January 1859 an extraordinary meeting of shareholders mandated the supervisory board to sell the Rhine shipping activities.

[27] The deal with the Nederlandsche Stoomboot Reederij meant that NSM's only remaining shipping activity was the Batavier line.

Wolfson tried to expand the Batavier line, but he was also the first chief executive that was regularly at Fijenoord, instead of only residing at De Boompjes.

Nederlands Indische Stoomvaart Maatschappij (NISM) won the tender, almost all of the required ships would be built in England.

[70] When the Batavier line to London gave good results, NSM founded the Hollandse Stoomboot Maatschappij together with the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij in January 1885.