With the death of James Neill in 1915, Robert Neill and Sons Ltd. devolved to his sons, with John Ferguson, 'Jack,' Neill, managing director. His younger brothers, William and Samuel; also spent their business careers involved with the family firm. Owing to the failing health of their father, the brothers had in fact been effectively in control of the company since 1908, when it was made limited liability.
A very significant move came in 1919, when the long established Belfast coal merchant James Kingsberry decided to retire and go to live in Canada, and sold out to Robert Neill and Sons Ltd. Kingsberry had been active on the Queen's Quay since the 1870s. When the old man departed for Canada he trusted the buyer of his business enough to be satisfied with the verbal promise of instalments of money to be sent across the Atlantic! The Kingsberry name was retained and is, of course, still a familiar sight on coal lorries and road tankers in and around Belfast. Another, less important, Belfast coal concern to be taken over was Ross's, but this firm was officially wound up in the 1960s.
Even further afield, too, the company gained business because anthracite was later to be brought in by Kingsberrys to Belfast and supplied the Maltings near Newtownards.
These developments gave Robert Neill and Sons Ltd. an important share of the Belfast market. Another innovation around this time was a fleet of Sentinel steam lorries, which lasted into the 1930s. These and the new motor wagons enabled the firm to advertise themselves as haulage contractors in the 'Official Guide to Bangor' published around 1925. Lime and builders' materials, especially cement and bricks, also formed an important aspect of the firm's interests, at a time when a great deal of new construction was taking place in Bangor. To cater for a growing population, now about 11,000, pleasant avenues such as the Hazeldene and Baylands districts were being laid out.
The immediate post-war period also brought a great boom for shipping, with freight rates soaring and shipyards producing new vessels as fast as they could. The Yorkshire yard of Cochrane and Sons, Selby, was turning out a class of handy steam coasters, one of the customers being Robert Neill and Sons Ltd., intent on replacing the Helen. The name chosen for the new collier was Whin (no definite reason for this choice survives) and she was completed in October 1920 to Cochranes' design, one of a class of nine. Neills paid £38,000 for her, but soon after this there was an amazing slump in the shipping business, and one of the last of the sister ships, the Farfield, was eventually sold for just £12,000 when her original owners failed to take delivery! The Whin as specified could load 530 tons on a draft of 11ft. l0ins. (in practice she usually loaded 460 tons in summer and 440 in winter) and her triple-expansion engine by C. D. Holmes and Co. of Hull gave her a guaranteed speed of 9.5 knots on nine tons of coal per day. The Dundalk coal merchant Samuel Lockington, a friend of Jack Neill, bought another of the class, the Margaret Lockington, identical to the Whin except for a larger engine, more powerful but much less economical. She and the Whin had parallel careers. Each would occasionally visit the other's home port, while now and again one of the other sisters such as the Beeston of Liverpool would turn up at Bangor with coal for one of the Neill firms. Having bought at the top of the market, though, it was a real struggle for many of the owners to pay for their new steamers.
Perhaps it was connected with this problem that Jack Neill and his brothers William and Samuel invested in Tyrella House and adjoining farmland near Dundrum, in the early 1920s. This was not the first family venture into farming, though, an interest that was to prove an important activity for over forty years, but little survives about the modest acreage around Bangor acquired in the time of the original Robert Neill. In 1917, a farm at Fonthill, Clandeboye, was bought to grow oats for the many coal horses in Bangor and also give work to the coal delivery men and horses during the summer months. Some time later, hearing complaints about the poor standard of milk retailed in Bangor ('glaury at the bottom'), the three brothers decided to begin dairy farming and retailed the milk throughout Bangor as 'Neills' Grade A'.
Sam Neill was the member of the family most interested in farming. Four other farms in the Ards Peninsula were also acquired, in the townlands of Kilnatierney, Cunningburn, Ballyblack and Corbally. In each case, a manager was appointed to handle day-to- day affairs.
Until 1928, William, 'Billy', Neill farmed Tyrella, a further instalment in a life that had included outstanding rugby talents displayed before the war for Coleraine Inst. and Ulster Schools, and after, as captain of North of Ireland, while in the intervening conflict he had been commissioned in the King's Own Royal Lancashire Regiment. Rising to the rank of Captain, he was wounded three times on the Western Front. Owing to the adverse business conditions in the late 1920s, William Neill was obliged to give up his farming activities to go to Belfast and look after the Kingsberry firm.
In 1929 he was joined in Kingsberry by Frank L. Campbell, not, incidentally, one of the Campbell relatives of the Neill family. Together they made an excellent team and during the difficult inter- war years the firm progressed. Frank Campbell became a director in 1938 and remained in office to instruct and encourage the younger generation until his death in 1961.
The 1920s were certainly a taxing time for anyone whose livelihood was coal and shipping. The acute recession of 1920 continued into 1921 and 1922, while 1923 was marked by a prolonged dock strike. The year of 1926, though, was the worst yet with the British miners' strike lasting seven months from May 1. Most British coasters traded through the General Strike, but when their bunkers began to be exhausted, owners often laid them up owing to the poor quality and high cost of foreign bunker coal. The Whin had to be kept going, and she was sent to the Continent to load coal for Neill in Bangor and Kingsberry in Belfast. Under the command of Captain Black of Carrickfergus - maintaining the 19th century links between Neills and Carrick sea captains - she loaded at such ports as Terneuzen in Holland and often discharged one hold in Bangor and one in Belfast.
Not long after this, the most familiar master of the Whin, Captain William McGrady of Islandmagee, joined her and remained skipper until the end of the ship's career. The Whin is said to have loaded the last coal cargo ever shipped out of the small Cumberland harbour of Harrington, carrying it to Fiddown, up the River Suir from Waterford, this being about 1929.
Charles Neill Ltd., run by brothers Robert and Charles, with a third brother John as a minority shareholder - decided to invest in their own tonnage in 1926, after a lapse of 22 years. They purchased the steamer River Humber from the Porthgain Steamship Co. Ltd., of Bristol. Of a different design to the Whin with bridge aft and a single hatch, she had been built at South Shields in 1920 and was of 351 gross tons, 137 net, with compound engines of 65 nominal horsepower. Her name and port of registry, Bristol, were never changed and she became a familiar sight at the Central Pier or just as frequently at Donaghadee where the steam crane often unloaded her into railway wagons shunted down the pier, this coal going to Charles Neill Ltd.'s depot at Newtownards railway station. Domestic coal was also distributed in Donaghadee itself, the Manor Street office having been opened by the firm about 1913.
The River Humber was driven hard by her master, Captain William Hamilton of Bangor, a well-known character on the coast. He had been in the employ of McDevette and Donnell, a Londonderry firm, commanding their Harrington, and on one occasion about 1914 left Portrush for Swansea at the same time as the steamer Wheatlands, Captain Glendinning. To enliven the passage, Captain Hamilton suggested a race, which he duly won, both crews having a fine night ashore on the proceeds of the £2 bet! He later skippered the same company's Culmore, a disastrously unseaworthy craft, and a Belfast pilot boat before joining the River Humber, the whistle of which he would sound when entering Bangor Bay to alert his wife to put on his favourite meal of Irish stew! The portly figure of Captain Hamilton was a familiar sight on the bridge, keen to sail even before the hatch beams were in place, to make good passage times - for example, Donaghadee to load at Whitehaven and back, all in 20 hours!
Frank Neill, who, it will be remembered, was carrying on the John Neill coal business on Queen's Quay, Belfast, died in 1929. Since 1910, he had been living in Bangor in 'Runnymede', the imposing house on the corner of Donaghadee Road and Broadway that still bears the name on one of its gates. His company was bought over by the Antrim Iron Ore Co. around this time and although they moved the offices to Riddel's Arcade, Belfast, in 1934 the name John Neill was retained until well into the 1950s - almost a century since the founder had moved away from his father and brothers to set up on his own.
The 1930s were a relatively uneventful period for the Neill interests, probably the most significant development being the disappearance of the coal storage sheds and office from Bangor's South Pier, and the removal of Robert Neill and Sons Ltd. to headquarters at 19 Main Street, with coal storage in Mill Row, by the gasworks. The local council had for some time been unhappy at the dust and general obtrusiveness of the coal trade in so central a position in a seaside resort, and the firm were forced to stop storing on the pier by a vesting order placed thereon. Compensation was only settled after a legal wrangle lasting until 1940. Coal continued to be discharged by steam cranes, though, the rails on which they were mounted being visible until the recent re-surfacing of the pier. Brick imports by the company averaged about 3,000 tons per annum in the inter-war years and there were also cargoes of cement in 1932 and 1933.
The Whin was joined in February 1933 by a second steamer, aptly renamed Briar, a slightly smaller vessel of 411 gross tons, 173 net, purchased from the Tyneside owners G. T. Gillie and Blair, for whom she sailed as the Royal Firth. Her long single hatch made her useful for steel cargoes, and in fact she had carried much of the steelwork for the new Craigavon Bridge over the River Foyle. The Briar tended to be employed loading coal for Belfast at the small North Wales port of Point of Ayr, as Kingsberrys were the agents locally for the Point of Ayr Collieries and she was just about the largest size of vessel the jetty there could conveniently handle. Both she and the Whin would be sent to the Channel in the spring for the vegetable trade from Brittany and the Channel Islands to English south coast ports such as Weymouth, and on one occasion the Briar went even further afield on charter, to Dutch waters to act as a fish carrier, accepting the catch from the fleet at sea.
Robert Neill of Charles Neill Ltd., a resident of Shandon Drive, Bangor, died in 1934, leaving in charge his younger brother Charles, who had married Phyllis Wedgwood of the Cumberland branch of the family of the pottery giant Josiah Wedgwood. She was a relative, by a striking coincidence; of the Cumberland girl Sarah Mulcaster, who had been James Neill's first wife in the 1860s.
A third brother, John, had become a minority shareholder in Charles Neill Ltd. in the 1920s and after the death of Robert his shares were bought back by Charles Neill, John Neill continuing independently in Donaghadee as John Neill and Sons, coal importers. Charles Neill, through failing health, was permitted to take less part in the running of his firm and much responsibility fell on his son, also Charles. Charles Neill, senior, passed away in 1945, aged 66.
Even further afield, too, the company gained business because anthracite was later to be brought in by Kingsberrys to Belfast and supplied the Maltings near Newtownards.
These developments gave Robert Neill and Sons Ltd. an important share of the Belfast market. Another innovation around this time was a fleet of Sentinel steam lorries, which lasted into the 1930s. These and the new motor wagons enabled the firm to advertise themselves as haulage contractors in the 'Official Guide to Bangor' published around 1925. Lime and builders' materials, especially cement and bricks, also formed an important aspect of the firm's interests, at a time when a great deal of new construction was taking place in Bangor. To cater for a growing population, now about 11,000, pleasant avenues such as the Hazeldene and Baylands districts were being laid out.
The immediate post-war period also brought a great boom for shipping, with freight rates soaring and shipyards producing new vessels as fast as they could. The Yorkshire yard of Cochrane and Sons, Selby, was turning out a class of handy steam coasters, one of the customers being Robert Neill and Sons Ltd., intent on replacing the Helen. The name chosen for the new collier was Whin (no definite reason for this choice survives) and she was completed in October 1920 to Cochranes' design, one of a class of nine. Neills paid £38,000 for her, but soon after this there was an amazing slump in the shipping business, and one of the last of the sister ships, the Farfield, was eventually sold for just £12,000 when her original owners failed to take delivery! The Whin as specified could load 530 tons on a draft of 11ft. l0ins. (in practice she usually loaded 460 tons in summer and 440 in winter) and her triple-expansion engine by C. D. Holmes and Co. of Hull gave her a guaranteed speed of 9.5 knots on nine tons of coal per day. The Dundalk coal merchant Samuel Lockington, a friend of Jack Neill, bought another of the class, the Margaret Lockington, identical to the Whin except for a larger engine, more powerful but much less economical. She and the Whin had parallel careers. Each would occasionally visit the other's home port, while now and again one of the other sisters such as the Beeston of Liverpool would turn up at Bangor with coal for one of the Neill firms. Having bought at the top of the market, though, it was a real struggle for many of the owners to pay for their new steamers.
Perhaps it was connected with this problem that Jack Neill and his brothers William and Samuel invested in Tyrella House and adjoining farmland near Dundrum, in the early 1920s. This was not the first family venture into farming, though, an interest that was to prove an important activity for over forty years, but little survives about the modest acreage around Bangor acquired in the time of the original Robert Neill. In 1917, a farm at Fonthill, Clandeboye, was bought to grow oats for the many coal horses in Bangor and also give work to the coal delivery men and horses during the summer months. Some time later, hearing complaints about the poor standard of milk retailed in Bangor ('glaury at the bottom'), the three brothers decided to begin dairy farming and retailed the milk throughout Bangor as 'Neills' Grade A'.
Sam Neill was the member of the family most interested in farming. Four other farms in the Ards Peninsula were also acquired, in the townlands of Kilnatierney, Cunningburn, Ballyblack and Corbally. In each case, a manager was appointed to handle day-to- day affairs.
Until 1928, William, 'Billy', Neill farmed Tyrella, a further instalment in a life that had included outstanding rugby talents displayed before the war for Coleraine Inst. and Ulster Schools, and after, as captain of North of Ireland, while in the intervening conflict he had been commissioned in the King's Own Royal Lancashire Regiment. Rising to the rank of Captain, he was wounded three times on the Western Front. Owing to the adverse business conditions in the late 1920s, William Neill was obliged to give up his farming activities to go to Belfast and look after the Kingsberry firm.
In 1929 he was joined in Kingsberry by Frank L. Campbell, not, incidentally, one of the Campbell relatives of the Neill family. Together they made an excellent team and during the difficult inter- war years the firm progressed. Frank Campbell became a director in 1938 and remained in office to instruct and encourage the younger generation until his death in 1961.
The 1920s were certainly a taxing time for anyone whose livelihood was coal and shipping. The acute recession of 1920 continued into 1921 and 1922, while 1923 was marked by a prolonged dock strike. The year of 1926, though, was the worst yet with the British miners' strike lasting seven months from May 1. Most British coasters traded through the General Strike, but when their bunkers began to be exhausted, owners often laid them up owing to the poor quality and high cost of foreign bunker coal. The Whin had to be kept going, and she was sent to the Continent to load coal for Neill in Bangor and Kingsberry in Belfast. Under the command of Captain Black of Carrickfergus - maintaining the 19th century links between Neills and Carrick sea captains - she loaded at such ports as Terneuzen in Holland and often discharged one hold in Bangor and one in Belfast.
Not long after this, the most familiar master of the Whin, Captain William McGrady of Islandmagee, joined her and remained skipper until the end of the ship's career. The Whin is said to have loaded the last coal cargo ever shipped out of the small Cumberland harbour of Harrington, carrying it to Fiddown, up the River Suir from Waterford, this being about 1929.
Charles Neill Ltd., run by brothers Robert and Charles, with a third brother John as a minority shareholder - decided to invest in their own tonnage in 1926, after a lapse of 22 years. They purchased the steamer River Humber from the Porthgain Steamship Co. Ltd., of Bristol. Of a different design to the Whin with bridge aft and a single hatch, she had been built at South Shields in 1920 and was of 351 gross tons, 137 net, with compound engines of 65 nominal horsepower. Her name and port of registry, Bristol, were never changed and she became a familiar sight at the Central Pier or just as frequently at Donaghadee where the steam crane often unloaded her into railway wagons shunted down the pier, this coal going to Charles Neill Ltd.'s depot at Newtownards railway station. Domestic coal was also distributed in Donaghadee itself, the Manor Street office having been opened by the firm about 1913.
The River Humber was driven hard by her master, Captain William Hamilton of Bangor, a well-known character on the coast. He had been in the employ of McDevette and Donnell, a Londonderry firm, commanding their Harrington, and on one occasion about 1914 left Portrush for Swansea at the same time as the steamer Wheatlands, Captain Glendinning. To enliven the passage, Captain Hamilton suggested a race, which he duly won, both crews having a fine night ashore on the proceeds of the £2 bet! He later skippered the same company's Culmore, a disastrously unseaworthy craft, and a Belfast pilot boat before joining the River Humber, the whistle of which he would sound when entering Bangor Bay to alert his wife to put on his favourite meal of Irish stew! The portly figure of Captain Hamilton was a familiar sight on the bridge, keen to sail even before the hatch beams were in place, to make good passage times - for example, Donaghadee to load at Whitehaven and back, all in 20 hours!
Frank Neill, who, it will be remembered, was carrying on the John Neill coal business on Queen's Quay, Belfast, died in 1929. Since 1910, he had been living in Bangor in 'Runnymede', the imposing house on the corner of Donaghadee Road and Broadway that still bears the name on one of its gates. His company was bought over by the Antrim Iron Ore Co. around this time and although they moved the offices to Riddel's Arcade, Belfast, in 1934 the name John Neill was retained until well into the 1950s - almost a century since the founder had moved away from his father and brothers to set up on his own.
The 1930s were a relatively uneventful period for the Neill interests, probably the most significant development being the disappearance of the coal storage sheds and office from Bangor's South Pier, and the removal of Robert Neill and Sons Ltd. to headquarters at 19 Main Street, with coal storage in Mill Row, by the gasworks. The local council had for some time been unhappy at the dust and general obtrusiveness of the coal trade in so central a position in a seaside resort, and the firm were forced to stop storing on the pier by a vesting order placed thereon. Compensation was only settled after a legal wrangle lasting until 1940. Coal continued to be discharged by steam cranes, though, the rails on which they were mounted being visible until the recent re-surfacing of the pier. Brick imports by the company averaged about 3,000 tons per annum in the inter-war years and there were also cargoes of cement in 1932 and 1933.
The Whin was joined in February 1933 by a second steamer, aptly renamed Briar, a slightly smaller vessel of 411 gross tons, 173 net, purchased from the Tyneside owners G. T. Gillie and Blair, for whom she sailed as the Royal Firth. Her long single hatch made her useful for steel cargoes, and in fact she had carried much of the steelwork for the new Craigavon Bridge over the River Foyle. The Briar tended to be employed loading coal for Belfast at the small North Wales port of Point of Ayr, as Kingsberrys were the agents locally for the Point of Ayr Collieries and she was just about the largest size of vessel the jetty there could conveniently handle. Both she and the Whin would be sent to the Channel in the spring for the vegetable trade from Brittany and the Channel Islands to English south coast ports such as Weymouth, and on one occasion the Briar went even further afield on charter, to Dutch waters to act as a fish carrier, accepting the catch from the fleet at sea.
Robert Neill of Charles Neill Ltd., a resident of Shandon Drive, Bangor, died in 1934, leaving in charge his younger brother Charles, who had married Phyllis Wedgwood of the Cumberland branch of the family of the pottery giant Josiah Wedgwood. She was a relative, by a striking coincidence; of the Cumberland girl Sarah Mulcaster, who had been James Neill's first wife in the 1860s.
A third brother, John, had become a minority shareholder in Charles Neill Ltd. in the 1920s and after the death of Robert his shares were bought back by Charles Neill, John Neill continuing independently in Donaghadee as John Neill and Sons, coal importers. Charles Neill, through failing health, was permitted to take less part in the running of his firm and much responsibility fell on his son, also Charles. Charles Neill, senior, passed away in 1945, aged 66.