The book we extracted the information from was part of the Ocean Steam Ship Company Archives.  It was a hand written record of sailings, dates, times, number  and class of passengers, name of Captain, Purser and Doctor.  It finished  at 1926, there was no follow up book. F Marriott was still sailing at that point.. I have 17 sailings with him as purser, and 5 ships names. They were all for Elder Dempster Company, buy at the time of sailing  the African Steam Ship company or the British and African Steam navigation Company. Some of the silings had voyage numbers, but  from 1923 he sailled on the same boat, with the same Captain, and no voyage number.

In the SAME archives was Wilfreds  half brother Dr H P Widdup, ships surgeon, 1928

At least I have some dates and ships names now, from that I may get his seamans number, and follow it back to full name and address. This is the first real HINT that my grandfather may have existed ( apart from  living members of the family of course!)

Sue

According to a gogle search the last ship was on the following run

1920-1968 passenger: Liverpool - Las Palmas - Lagos - Calabar/Port Harcourt.

Sue

Sue. A little bit of the History of the Ocean Steamship Company for you.

This is a link to the Blue Flue site. It gives some of the names of the ships they owned. You may be able to cross-reference the ships names.

http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/bluefunnel.html

Blue Funnel Line
Ocean Steamship Company / Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij 'Ocean' / East Indian Ocean Steam Ship Company / China Mutual Steam Navigation Company

Alfred Holt commenced shipowning with Thomas Ainsworth in 1852 and built their first new ship in 1854, which they immediately chartered to the French Government for use in the Crimean War. The company started sailings to the West Indies in 1855, but in the face of competition from established companies, later pulled out of this route. In 1864 they began sailing to China and the Far East, and have since become the major British company serving this area. The company was registered as the Ocean Steamship Co. in 1865.
In 1891, a Dutch subsidiary company, Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij 'Ocean' (N.S.M.O) was formed to compete with Dutch companies serving the East Indies, and the company also formed the Singapore based East Indian Ocean SS Co. the same year. The China Mutual Steam Navigation Co. was taken over in 1902 together with their fleet of 13 steamers and their route between China and the West Coasts of Canada and the USA. Although ships were nominally owned by China Mutual SN Co.
In 1915 Royden's Indra Line of seven ships was purchased with their New York - Far East service. Greenshields, Cowie & Co's Knight Line was bought in 1917 and a joint passenger service to Australia with the White Star Line was formed in 1924 and this was joined by the Aberdeen Line in 1926. The Glen and Shire Lines (not the Scottish Shire Line) were taken over in 1935 following the collapse of the Royal Mail group, and a controlling interest in the Straits SS Co. was acquired the same year. Shaw, Savill had taken over the joint service to Australia from White Star Line, but Blue Funnel Line withdrew from this partnership in 1939.
In 1967 the Blue Funnel and Elder Dempster Line fleets merged and in 1972 the group acquired William Cory & Son Ltd and became Ocean Trading & Transport Co. Ltd. Transfers between different companies within the group became common after this date, but these have been largely ignored for the purposes of this list.

Many thanks to Ted Finch for his assistance in collecting this data.

Many thanks for that, it makes interesting reading. I don't want to get too excited, but it is difficult not to. At least I have a trail to try to follow, which is more than I have had before. Am I right, if I can find details of the voyages I should find the crew list and hence the seamans number?

Sue

I have just returned from the National Archives at Kew. What disappointment. Fred turned out to be Frank, 20 years older than my grandfather, and looking nothing like him. Back to the drawing board as they say, but with no ideas about what to do next

Sue