Robley & Co.

ROBLEY & Co., Ship Store Merchants and Export Grocers, 80, York Street, Glasgow.

    The process of growth of the Atlantic and other ocean liners, from vessels of comparatively small tonnage to the large floating towns which now crowd the great waterways and perform their journeys with as much precision as railway trains on land, has been so natural that we are apt to forget, or at least to underrate, the magnitude and complication of the interests involved; and, of these interests, by no means the least important is the feeding of crew and passengers.

    The magnitude of the task will be realised if we consider that one of these great steamships often carries one thousand or more adults on board, and that supplies for 32 days for the voyage out and home again have to be provided. Nine hundred persons for 32 days is equivalent to 28,800 persons for one day, or the population of a town of considerable size, and yet this work is being carried out daily by Messrs. Robley & Co., Ships’ Store Merchants, as a simple matter of business. Their trade consists exclusively in supplying the “Anchor” and other lines of emigration ships with “ships’ stores”, and they are the largest house in this line in Glasgow.

    The business was established in 1862, and their premises in York Street consist of a large suite of offices on the ground floor with ample warehouse accommodation in rear extending to Robertson Street, where the bulk of their vans are loaded and unloaded. The term ships’ stores is so comprehensive and includes such a large number of duty-paying articles that a firm, carrying on business on such an extensive scale as Messrs. Robley, occupy large bonded stores from which such goods as tea, coffee, dried fruits, tobacco, lime juice, wines, spirits, and beer can be drawn as required. Their bonded stores are situated opposite at No. 35, York Street.

    The following items, selected from the list of stores required to be shipped by the Government for an ocean liner carrying 785 adults to New York, will afford some criterion of the magnitude and complexity of Messrs. Robley’s business : Biscuit, 2,340 lbs.; flour, 16,072 lbs.; beef (salt) 5,776 ; beef (fresh) 10,800 lbs.; coffee, 672 lbs.; tea, 287 lbs.; sugar, 4,032 lbs. ; salt, 560 lbs.; mustard, 108 lbs. ; pepper, 56 lbs.; marmalade, 546 lbs.; vegetables, 21 cwts. ; potatoes, 240 cwts. While under the head of medical comforts we find such items as brandy, 13 galls. ; stout, 80 doz.; loaf sugar, 448 lbs. ; essence of beef (|lb. tins), 138 lbs. ; rusks, 38 lbs. The price list issued by the firm includes every kind of dried fruit, jam, biscuits, arrowroot, malt and hops, hams, cheese, and all sorts of candles, soda, soap, dried fish, tinned goods, spices, preserved meats and vegetables, tobacco and cigars, lime juice, wines, and spirits ; in fact every article of food which may be required by crew or passengers on ships in any service whatever for long or short voyages.

    The long experience of the firm in these matters and the vast extent of their business are a sufficient guarantee that the goods supplied are of the finest quality at a reasonable price, and that orders will be executed with that promptitude, despatch, and certainty which is one of the first requirements of such a business.

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