History
The history of Containerships goes back over 250 years and now more than ever we're shaping the future of our industry. Take a walk down memory lane to discover how William MacAndrew founded MacAndrews back in 1770 and find out how we became Containerships.
A Timeline of History
Our history is long, over two and a half centuries old. Back then we imported fruits from Spain and Portugal into the UK, a practice we're still engaged in to this day. Nowadays we also move a lot of other cargo too, so take a look at our timeline to see how we went from MacAndrews to modern day Containerships.*
Timeline
| 1770 | The history of Containerships goes back to 1770 when 18-year-old William MacAndrew from Scotland started importing fruits from Spain and Portugal with offices in both London and Liverpool. |
|---|---|
| 1857 | The first MacAndrew line steamship, the 315-tonne Acor, was built in Glasgow. |
| 1859 | Robert MacAndrew & Co (William's son) embarked on an extensive expansion programme, opening offices throughout Spain, as well building and acquiring new vessels which were registered in Spain. A total of 27 new ships were contracted for, mostly ranging in size from 600-700 gross tonnes. |
| 1882 | August Schultze introduced OPDR to the world, shipping glass to Portugal and importing cork into Germany. |
| 1910 | OPDR obtained the transport licence for the mail of the German Empire along with a new service into the Canary Islands. |
| 1915 | OPDR had 16 vessels operating on routes to/from Hamburg, Antwerp, Morocco and the Canary Islands. |
| 1945 | MacAndrews and OPDR suffered significant losses due to the war. By the end of the war, all OPDR's vessels were either lost or confiscated by the Allies. |
| 1959 | The invention of the modern container led to the foundation of Containerships as the world's first short sea dedicated container line between Turku, Finland and Felixstowe, UK. |
| 2003 | French shipping giant CMA CGM acquired MacAndrews. |
| 2014 |
OPDR joins CMA CGM. Later that year, Containerships launches the first fully LNG-powered container vessel with the arrival of mv Containerships Polar. |
| 2018 | OPDR and MacAndrews merge to form MacAndrews, a powerhouse in intra-European short sea transport. |
| 2019 | In April 2019, the two intra-European multimodal logistics experts, Containerships and MacAndrews, united to become one brand, Containerships. |
| 2021 | Today, we offer our customers unique and sustainable multimodal transport solutions utilising our comprehensive European network reaching from the Baltics to North Africa. |
