This year marks the 120th anniversary of the founding of the well-known Ellerman Lines, which went on as the Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Company to form the shortlived Canadian City Line service in cooperation with its North American agent, McLean-Kennedy of Montreal, during the early 1970s. Both firms had maintained trade links with India, Pakistan and Ceylon prior to World War II, and the new line was to renew this link using conventional breakbulk tonnage sailing via South Africa, the Suez Canal having been closed by hostilities in 1967.
The Canadian ports were to be Montreal and Toronto, with Saint John, New Brunswick used during the winter months when the St Lawrence river was ice-bound. The principal eastbound cargoes were to be Canadian newsprint, wood pulp, machinery, asbestos, lead, zinc, copper and aluminium, while westbound cargoes were projected to be tea, coffee, cashews, coconut, burlap and other jute products.