William Hesketh Lever was a well known soap manufacturer and became involved in the West Africa trade to supply his company, primarily with palm oil.

In 1916 Lever took over the Manchester firm of H. Watson & Co., which had a fleet of eight vessels, with names derived from villages in Cheshire and Shropshire: Colemere, Delamere, Eskmere, Flaxmere, Linmere, Oakmere, Rabymere and Redesmere.

This small fleet, whose tonnages ranged from 1,251 to 2,293, was formed into the Bromport Steamship Company Ltd.[6] – named after Bromborough, a town on the Wirral Peninsula that, like Port Sunlight, was dominated by Lever-owned businesses.

It sailed under a new blue house flag, marked with a white star, the letters BSCL and a central L for Lever.

[7] In the two remaining years of the First World War the Bromport Line lost half of its ships (Colemere, Eskmere, Redesmere and Delamere) to German U-boats.

In the same year the Niger Company, encouraged by the improvement in its fortunes and influenced by the example of its rival, took the steps to create its own fleet with the purchase of the Cunard steamer Tyria, which was renamed Ars – from the old Royal Niger Company Latin motto, Ars Jus Pax (art, justice, peace).

Following the traditions of A&E ships were named after countries or ports with which they served – Mendian, Zarian, Kumasian, Lagosian, Congonian, Gambian and Dahomian.

There was a second wave of fleet expansion in 1930's partly due to improved trading conditions but also because Unilever had large sums of money in Germany which had been blocked by the German government.

On 17 June 1940 she was at Saint-Nazaire taking part in the evacuation of remnants of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in Operation Aerial.

Fortunately there were no casualties and she was towed to Falmouth by the tug HMS Salvonia for repair and she returned to service in June 1941.

They had entered Dakar for diesel bunkers, and on 5 July 1940, shortly after the fall of France, they were boarded by Vichy French officials and impounded.

On the following night he (German Type IX submarine U-67[13]) came again at about the same time but he only succeeded to strike one on this occasion, St Clair, managed by UAC and commanded by Captain Readman.

She had survived an air raid in Liverpool during the blitz, but this time she was sunk by torpedo 130 miles off Trinidad by the German Type IX submarine U-508.

The master and 29 survivors were picked up on 11 December 1942 by US Navy submarine-chaser USS PC-624 and landed at Moruga Bay, Trinidad.

Twenty days later, at 21:23 on 28 December 1942, on her way from Leith to Takoradi and straggling from Convoy ON 154, Zarian was torpedoed and sunk by U-591,[16] with the loss of four lives.

Four crew members were lost, with the 49 remaining survivors picked up by the destroyer HMS Milne at 08:15, and landed at Ponta Delgada in the Azores.

On 28 March 1943 the Lagosian, which had been repaired after her earlier attack, was finally sunk by torpedo by U-167[17] on her way from Algiers to Takoradi via Gibraltar.

11 people were killed, and the 35 survivors were picked up by the British tug Empire Denis and landed at Bathurst, Gambia.

Ashantian had survived an earlier attack by U-137[18] on 26 September 1940, when, as part of Convoy OB 218, she was hit amidships on the port side by a single torpedo.

The commander of the Flower-class corvette HMS Gloxinia ordered the crew to leave the vessel again because a U-boat was reported in nearby Dromore Bay.

The crew of the unescorted Matadian were luckier when she was attacked and sunk by U-66[19] in the Gulf of Guinea, en route from Lagos to the UK, on 21 March 1944.

The also unescorted Dahomian was lost 10 miles west-southwest off Cape Point, South Africa on 1 April 1944, torpedoed by U-852.

During the war, UAC had tried to make good their losses by building three replacement vessels, namely, the Congonian (1942), the Kumasian (1943) and Lafian (1943).

It was becoming clear that the future of the shipping side of the business could best be served by establishing it as an independent company, a common carrier able to operate in the same way as other lines and not tied exclusively to UAC traffic.

This was done by reviving the dormant articles of association of the old Southern Whaling and Sealing Company and changing its name to Palm Line.