The History of Kinnes Shipping and Barrie & Nairn Co. – from Jute and Oil to Ships Agent, Freight and Customs throughout the East Coast of Scotland.
Kinnes Shipping Ltd. is a ships agency, freight forwarding and customs company based in Dundee on the East coast of Scotland. Today the company is a modern and forward thinking agency servicing customers and vessels throughout the UK. With roots embedded deep in the whaling and jute industries of Dundee’s maritime past, we continue to provide a first class service to vessels up and down the country.
The company Kinnes Shipping Ltd. we know today can be traced back to the days of sail with Robert Kinnes and Sons founded in 1883 as a trading company of the Tay Whale Fishing Co. Ltd and Captain Charles Barrie a veteran sailor who started his own ship management office in 1881 on returning to Dundee after a successful career at sea. In 1966 Charles Barrie and Sons merged with B.L. Nairn a shipowner in Dundee to form Barrie and Nairn.
Oh the noble fleet of whalers out sailing from Dundee,
Well-manned by British sailors to work them on the sea;
On the western ocean passage none with them can compare
For there’s not a ship could make the trip as the Balaena, I declare.
And the wind is on her quarter and her engine working free,
And there’s not another whaler a-sailing from Dundee
Can beat the aul’ Balaena, and you needn ‘t try her on,
For we challenge all both large and small from Dundee to St John’s.
In 1999 Jill and Graeme Whittick of Barrie and Nairn purchased Kinnes Shipping from Barrie Kinnes and merged the companies, maintaining the link between modern shipping and historic that has lasted over 140 years.
Ship, freight and customs agent headquartered in Dundee. Working throughout Scotland with offices in Grangemouth, Dundee, Montrose and Perth
Stannergate Road
Dundee
DD1 3NA
+44 (0) 1382 462 858