Jock Willis Shipping Line
{{Short description|Defunct British shipping company}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2018}}
{{Infobox company
| name = John Willis & Sons
| logo = House flag of the Jock Willis Shipping Line.svg
|logo_caption = House flag
| type = Private company
| location = London, Great Britain
| key_people = John Willis, Senior
John Willis, Junior
| founder = John Willis, Senior
| industry = Shipping
}}
John Willis & Sons of London, also called the Jock Willis Shipping Line, was a nineteenth-century London-based ship-owning firm. It owned a number of clippers including the historic tea clipper Cutty Sark.{{r|MacGregor|p=196}}
Company history and its people
The company was founded in London by John 'Jock' Willis (1791–1862), a ship captain (nicknamed 'Old Stormy Willis').{{cite book|last1=Spectre|first1=Peter|title=A Mariner's Miscellany|isbn=978-1574091953|page=21|year=2005|publisher=Sheridan House }} Jock Willis had joined ships sailing along the British coast after having run away from his home at Eyemouth, Berwickshire, when he was 14 years old.{{cite book|last1=Holden|first1=Walter V.|last2=McGiveron|first2=Joan|title=John Willis and the "Cutty Sark" Tea Clipper|publisher=The Family history forum|location=Eyemouth, United Kingdom}} During one of his sailing voyages to London, he found employment at a pub frequented by seafarers in the New India Dock (now Canary Wharf). He saved the money earned there, supplemented by money earned by repairing seafarers' sea shanty musical instruments. He returned to sail on the West Indiamen as a second and Chief Mate.{{cite book|last1=Shewan|first1=Andrew|title=The Great Days of Sail: Reminiscences of a Tea-clipper Captain|date=31 Dec 1996|publisher=Conway Classics - Conway Maritime Press Ltd|location=United Kingdom|isbn=978-0851776996|edition=New Edition – 1996}}
Willis married Janet Dunbar on 23 July 1815, and the couple had nine children – six sons and three daughters – of whom the eldest was also named John. In 1826, he started his own ship owning company, registered in London.
The younger Jock Willis (1817–1899), himself a ship master, took over his father's firm of ship owners. Also known as 'White Hat Willis', it was during his time that the company built and owned clippers like Cutty Sark.{{cite web | url=http://www.rmg.co.uk/about/press/cutty-sark-press-pack/history-of-cutty-sark | title=History of the Cutty Sark | publisher=National Maritime Museum | access-date=3 June 2014 | website=rmg.co.uk | archive-date=6 June 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140606224711/http://www.rmg.co.uk/about/press/cutty-sark-press-pack/history-of-cutty-sark | url-status=dead }} The other sons, too, joined the company in various capacities – either sailing on their ships or working in their offices.
Trade
Their ships focused on the tea trade between China, the far east and United Kingdom and the wool trade with Australia.
Ships
File:Willis Tea Line Clipper, by Frederick Tudgay.jpg
The first vessel purchased by John Willis was the 253-ton Sunderland-built barque Demarara Planter in 1830, which sailed to the West Indies. Many of the ships later built by the firm were named after places in Willis' native county of Berwickshire.{{cite journal|title=John Willis & Sons (1830-1899)|journal=The Mariner's Mirror|volume=58|issue=4|pages=397–402|date=22 March 2013|doi=10.1080/00253359.1972.10658681|last1=Crosse|first1=John}} Company ships included:
- Demerara Planter (1830){{cite web | url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/demerara-planter-194308 | title=Oil painting - Ship Portrait - Demerara Planter | access-date=3 June 2014 | website=Art UK | archive-date=14 March 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160314043918/http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/demerara-planter-194308 | url-status=dead }}
- Janet Willis (1835)
- John Willis (1839)
- Whampoa (1842)
- Borderer (1845)
- Saint Abbs (1848)
- Janet Willis (1850)
- Merse (1853)
- Berwickshire (1855)
- Lammermuir (1856)
- Lauderdale (1858)
- Laurel (1861)
- Albuera (1862)
- Whiteadder (1862){{cite book |last=MacGregor |first=David R. |date= 1983|title=The Tea Clippers, Their History and Development 1833-1875 |publisher=Conway Maritime Press Limited |isbn=0-85177-256-0}}{{rp|page=132}}
- The Tweed (acquired 1863; launched 1854 as the Punjaub)
- Lammermuir (1864)
- Zenobia (1867)
- Borderer (1868)
- Dharwar (1868)
- Coldinghame (1869)
- Cutty Sark (1869){{cite book|last1=Lubbock|first1=Basil| author-link = Basil Lubbock|title=The log of the "Cutty Sark"|year=1925|publisher=J.Brown & Sons|location=Glasgow|url=https://archive.org/details/logofcuttysark0000lubb|access-date=3 June 2014}}
- Blackadder (1870)
- Hallowe'en (1872)
- Coldstream (1875)
- Jumna (1875)
- Fantasie (1877)
- Sumatra (1878)
- Taitsing (1880)
Motto
The company's motto, 'Where there's a will is a way', was a pun on the family name, and was displayed on the stern of all Willis ships.{{cite book|title=Cruising World - Nautical History|edition=Jan - Oct 2000}}{{cite book|last1=Bold|first1=J.|last2=Bradbeer|first2=Charlotte|last3=Merwe|first3=P. Van der|title=Maritime Greenwich: A world heritage site : A guide|date=31 May 1999|publisher=National Maritime Museum and Collins & Browne|location=Great Britain|page=23|isbn=978-0948065286}}