Steel and Bennie 1856-1970

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In 1856, James Steel, acquired several lighters offered for sale by the Clyde Shipping Company and formed James Steel and Son with his eldest son John [1826-1908]. This Company incorporated the Glasgow and Greenock Shipping Company which he had formed soon after leaving the Clyde Shipping Company in 1851, where he had been Lighter Manager for some years. His fourth son Robert [1832-1904] also joined the partnership. James Steel died two years later in 1858 and the brothers continued to run the company until they took David Bennie  [c1843-1922] into partnership forming Steel and Bennie in 1877.
This company continued to operate in Glasgow with John's son James, a mining engineer, joining them until 1896, when he moved to London. Robert Heron Steel died in 1904 and John retired around this time. He died in London in 1908.
By the end of the war in 1917, David Bennie retired with failing health. That year a substantial shareholding in the Company was acquired by Houlder Bros & Co. Ltd. of London.
David Finlay Bennie, who had resigned his commission in the Highland Light Infantry in 1911, succeeded his bachelor uncle as Managing Director until he died in 1955, aged 74. His son-in-law PS MacCallum, who joined the company after the war, in 1945, then took over.
David F Bennie was one of the original founders of the British Tugowners Association.
During the Second World War, the two towing companies, Clyde Shipping Co. and Steel & Bennie were amalgamated under one control for the war effort and in the 1960s they again combined until Steel & Bennie was sold to a Dutch company in 1970.
 In 1956 a Centenary Booklet was produced. The Company was associated with the great era of shipping in Glasgow and provided capital to the tea merchant and tea planting ventures in India which resulted in Octavius Steel and Co. which also lasted over one hundred years and also produced a Centenary booklet in 1976.