James Baines was a very lively, little man, fair with reddish hair. His vitality was abnormal and he had an enthusiastic flow of talk. Of an eager, generous disposition, his hand was ever in his pocket for those in trouble; and he was far from being the cool, hard-headed type of business man. He was as open as the day and hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, nevertheless his far-sightedness and his eager driving power carried him to the top in so phenomenally short a time that his career has become a sort of romantic legend in Liverpool.
He was born in Upper Duke Street, Liverpool, where his mother kept a cake and sweet shop, in which many a present-day Liverpool shipowner can remember stuffing himself as a boy. Indeed, Mrs. Baines had such a reputation that she is said to have made one of the wedding cakes for the marriage of Queen Victoria.
The following is the most generally-accepted story of James Baines’ first venture in ship-owning. In 1851 a dirty-looking ship with stumpy masts and apple-cheeked bows lay in the Queen’s Dock, Liverpool, with a broom at her masthead, thus indicating that she was for sale. This ship, which seafaring men contemptuously compared to a barrel of pork, had been cheaply built at Miramichi, and was evidently going for a song. James Baines scraped together what little money he had and bought her, sent her out to the Colonies and made a good profit on her; and this was the humble beginning of the great Black Ball Line, which in 1860 possessed 86 ships and employed 300 officers and 3000 seamen.
How James Baines came to take the house-flag and name of the well-known line of American packet ships, which had been running between New York and Liverpool since 1816, I have been unable to find out. One cannot but think, however, that this must often have occasioned confusion in Liverpool business circles.
James Baines’ success was, as I have said, meteoric, and to the end of the fifties he flourished exceedingly. He lived in a beautiful house, where he dispensed princely hospitality, drove a four-in-hand, and thought nothing of buying five ships in one day at Kellock’s Auction Rooms. But in the year 1860 his star began to set. Like many another, he was tempted by the steam-kettle, with the result that he amalgamated with Gibbs, Bright & Co., who had already deserted sail for that doubtful investment, auxiliary steam, and had started a service with the ill-fated _Royal Charter_ and the equally well-known _Great Britain_.