Smith, Hogg & Company Limited

Contact Information

About

Shipbrokers and Port Agents, offering agency services at all North East UK Ports from Berwick on Tweed to Tees. Chartering, specialising in North Sea and Baltic, heavy lifts and hazardous cargo. Customs Clearance throughout UK, Freight Forwarding and Offshore Agency.

Smith, Hogg & Company was founded on May 2nd 1904 by Thomas Graham Smith of Newcastle and Herbert Laurence Hogg of Hartlepool, who were at that time aged 25 and 26 respectively. The company operated as shipbrokers and timber agents from an office in Victoria Terrace, Hartlepool. Within a year, assisted by Barclays Bank, the partners bought the steamer CONSTANTINOS STATHATOS from Greek Owners and renamed her BEECHBURN. Following the successful trading of this vessel, an order was placed in 1907 with Craig, Taylor & Co Ltd of Stockton for a vessel of 2027 Gross Register Tons which was launched in 1908 and named NORBURN. Although the hull was newly built, the engines dated from 1891. They had been built by the Central Marine Engine Works, West Hartlepool, for the CITY OF WORCESTER, which was wrecked off Craster, Northumberland, in December 1899. H L Hogg's brother Willie, a marine engineer, had advised the partners to buy the engines, which he considered still had plenty of life in them. He was right. When the old NORBURN was broken up 52 years later in 1960 she still had those same engines. In 1915 the NORBURN was sold to Coombes Marshall & Co., Middlesbrough, leaving the partners without a ship of their own, the BEECHBURN having been sold to Uruguayan Owners in 1907. Rebuilding the Fleet The firm traded throughout the First World War as shipbrokers and timber agents, and did not return to ship owning until 1924 when the steamer ALGARDI was purchased and renamed ALBURN. She traded for several years on the Hartlepool - Gothenburg run, and became known locally as Smith Hogg's submarine: she had so little freeboard that she appeared to submerge on passing Hartlepool Bar buoy and only surfaced at the Vinga Lighthouse in the approaches to Gothenburg. In February 1926 a second ship, the ROWANBURN was acquired and the following November she was joined by OTTERBURN. This ship had been built the previous year to carry wine in casks, and sported eight winches which used more steam than the main engines when all were running together. A year later the LILBURN joined the fleet and later achieved a place in the annals of Maritime Law when she rolled on her beam ends in Stornoway harbour during bunkering on a trip from Archangel to Garston. By 1930 the ALBURN had been sold and replaced by the GROVEBURN, an exceptionally good timber carrier bought from Norwegian Owners. Continued on At the outbreak of war in 1939 the company had three ships, the ROSEBURN and ARKLESIDE, bought in 1935 and the MAGDALENA, newly purchased that year. Sadly, this little fleet did not last long. The ARKLESIDE was one of the earliest casualties of the war, sunk by gunfire from U33 off Ushant on September 16th 1939. The ROSEBURN was torpedoed by a German E-boat off Dungeness in June 1940 while on passage from New Brunswick to Hartlepool, luckily with no loss of life. The MAGDALENA was less fortunate, however, and during the night of 18 September 1940 was torpedoed by U.48 and sent to the bottom of the Atlantic with her crew of 30 men and one gunner a few days out in convoy from St Johns, Newfoundland loaded with iron ore for Birkenhead. It was a sad stroke of fate that the old ALBURN had been shelled and sunk by this same U boat three months earlier. During World War II the company managed a number of ships for the Ministry of War Transport and others, including the EMPIRE KNOLL, launched in Hartlepool in February 1941 but wrecked off the Tyne the same month before she had even loaded her first cargo. The last ship to be managed by the company was the FORT ABITIBI and following her delivery to the US Maritime Commission in 1947, Smith Hogg ceased their ship owning and management function to concentrate on their port agency, chartering and timber agency businesses. Modern Times T G Smith retired in 1948 at the age of 70 and died in 1960, leaving his son Val as a director of the company. H L Hogg never admitted to having retired but relinquished chairmanship of the company to his son Peter and passed away in 1971 in his 92nd year. Since that time, Smith Hogg has owned and run subsidiary companies in timber broking, saw milling and project forwarding, but retained its core business of shipbroking throughout. In 1975 the Board expanded the firm's shipbroking activities by the acquisition of the old-established company of Amundsen & Smith Ltd in Seaham Harbour, and in 1980 helped to finance the establishment of Cockfield, Knight & Co Ltd in Middlesbrough. Throughout its existence, the company has adapted to the changing fortunes of a volatile business and has survived booms, depressions and two world wars in the pursuit of its specialised activities. Its Directors have every intention of continuing the example of enterprise and integrity set by the original partners almost a century ago.

Keywords