Container History

Until the mid 1960’s general cargo, such as refrigerators, televisions and car parts were loaded into small cargo ships as individual units in cardboard boxes or crates.

Loading and discharging of these cargo ships took from several days to several weeks and required many workers, or dockers, to handle each item.

An average sized cargo ship carried 10,000 tonnes of general cargo.

An American truck operator, Malcolm McLean thought that it would be a good idea to parcel up this general cargo into containers and designed the first purpose built container in the mid 1950’s.

It took a few more years for the standard 20 foot and 40 foot containers which we see on our roads today to evolve and from the mid 1960’s the first purpose built container ship appeared in Europe.

Special equipment had to be designed to lift containers, such as very tall gantry cranes to lift them on and off the ship and straddle carriers to carry them from the lorry to the gantry cranes.

One large container ship today can carry up to 11,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEU) replacing almost 30 general cargo vessels because of the size and speed of operation.  For example to load and discharge 20,000 tonnes of general cargo to approxiamately 20 days.  Whereas to load and discharge 20,000 tonnes of containers takes less than 24 hours.