Started originally by Argyllshire Scotsmen Robert Mackenzie and William Mackinnon in the 1840s, the early generations of management were Scots: mostly from Glasgow. Taking advantage of the spirit of the new age of 'free trade' and the crumbling of the 'Honourable East India Company', soon business expanded, with goods from Glasgow to India and on to China and Australia. When the remaining parts of Burma were seized by the British in the 1850s, unsurprisingly this company got involved there too. In 1856 the company was named the Calcutta and Burmah Steam Navigation Company. Six years later it became the British India Steam Navigation Company Limited.

This was most definitely a business which expanded with the Empire. Providing vessels for service to the Crown in trooping for the Maori wars in New Zealand during the 1860s and the Zulu War of 1879, commercial opportunities soon followed. Mail contracts were important in this (being paid state subsidies) and the company also reached into the Persian Gulf and down East Africa's coast in the 1870s. Of course, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1867 was highly significant in opening up these regions to economic activities.

As the company expanded rivals were taken over where necessary. Again H.M. Government was supported in trooping during the Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 and in the Boxer Rebellion in China during 1900 - with new commercial contracts in their wake. However, their main competitor was P & O. Although it has been maintained that this was an amalgamation, without digging deep into company records it is not unlikely that this was a case where all out commercial conflict would have been highly costly, if not fatal to one or both parties. Anyway, from 1914 until after the Second World War the British India Steam Navigation Company Limited operated 'independently' within the P & O group of companies.

There are some registers which are organised not unlike those of P & O S.N. Company. There are officers' records books which deal with seamen officers, medical officers and clerks (that must have been the company's designation for pursers). Again they are written up from rough year of entry. However, as these relate to very long spells it should not be necessary to know the date of entry into company service accurately. Ten ledgers cover the period between 1868 and 1946. These are recorded in rough alphabetical order, again with cross-referencing to further page numbers. However, there is at least one separate index inserted into the front of the register and incidentally is easy to miss, but which gives page numbers of entries.

Engineers once again had their own registers. While the above registers (for seamen) are the same size as was commonly used (somewhere around A3 or a little larger), those of engineers are absolutely massive: in the form of A2 loose sheets and held within ledger covers. Erroneously until recently I thought that here was one series only, covering the years from 1905 until 1957, in alphabetical order. Potentially, a great deal of information can be learned about individual engineers, electricians and boilermakers. However, I have recently found engineers within the earlier registers relating to seamen officers. From those that I have seen, at least some are internally indexed alphabetically.

There are four registers entitled 'Stewards' Staff Afloat', covering the period 1913 to 1955. These break down by ships' names and voyage numbers and give salient information, including home addresses, on all members of the caterers and stewarding staff onboard.

Also, there are a handful of other registers that I have not managed to view. These comprise, one 'Stewards' Department Applicants' for 1916 to 1927; one 'Supply Department Applicants' for 1954 to 1957; and three 'Cadets' Service Books' for 1906 to 1953.