Minister of Shipping
Open-knowledge reference entry
The Minister of Shipping was a British government post created in the First World War and again in the Second World War. In 1941 it was merged into the position of Minister of Transport which was then renamed Minister of War Transport.
History
Sir Joseph Maclay, 1st Baronet (16 December 1916 – 31 March 1921), as "Shipping Controller" was the first holder of the post. As Sir Joseph was not a member of either house of Parliament, a Parliamentary Secretary was appointed to represent him in the Commons. The first was Sir Leo Chiozza Money (22 December 1916) who was succeeded on 10 January 1919 by Leslie Orme Wilson who held the post until 31 March 1921
The responsibilities overseen by the minister included what had been the Transport Board that was part of the Navy Board until 1832. Oversight for the provision of naval transportation then passed to the Department of the Comptroller of Victualling and Transport Services until 1862 when it was transferred to the Board of Admiralty who set up a Transport Department. By 1890 it was renamed as the Department of the Director of Transports. In 1917 once again as the Transport Department it was temporarily absorbed into the Ministry of Shipping, and the Admiralty seconded an officer to the ministry with the title of Director of Transports and Shipping.
In 1916 a Shipping Controller was appointed to regulate merchant shipping for government purposes and to coordinate wartime shipping requirements. A Ministry of Shipping was established following the Defence Regulations of June 1917.
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This entry incorporates text from “Minister of Shipping” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.