Includes:
• Overseas Containers Ltd (OCL) board minutes, executive director’s minutes; executive committee minutes; corporate plans, 1968-2000.
• OCL early history papers and document by P A Tobin; papers covering Australia & New Zealand service integration; New Zealand and Japan; feasibility studies (North Atlantic); brochures, house newspapers, OCL Pacific board papers 1978-79. See listing (POHAAC and POHAOC selections).
• P&O Containers Ltd (P&OCL) board minutes and executive papers, 1979-1991.
• Associated Container Transport (ACT), minutes and board of director’s minutes, 1966-1998.
• Overseas accounts: Tovey, Pacific Coast Shipping, Blue Stace Pace, Robert Barrow (c. 1990’s).
• Blue Star Line & ACT minute books (15 in total), 1920-2006.
• Australia Japan Container Line Ltd (AJC), board minutes, 1972-1978
• Crusader Swire board minutes, 1982-1986.

Administrative / biographical background
P&O Nedlloyd began as a partnership (OCL) between 4 major shipping groups (P&O, British & Commonwealth, Furness Withy and Ocean Transport). OCL operated between 1969 and 1982; later bought out by P&O and then operated from 1986 until 1996 when P&O joined forces with Dutch Royal Nedlloyd Group becoming P&O Nedlloyd; which changed to Royal P&O Nedlloyd (P&O interest reduced to 25%) in 2004 and finally was acquired by A P Moller-Maersk in 2005 where the records are housed today. Associated Container Transportation (ACT) was also formed to bring together and containerise the cargo liner interests of Cunard, Ellerman, Blue Star Line, Ben Line and Charente Steamship Company. Cunard and Ellerman elements of ACT were acquired by P&O in 1991 (when it wholly owned OCL) and Blue Star Line in 1998. OCL became wholly a P&O subsidiary in 1986 and was renamed P&O containers later in the same year. In 1998 P&O Nedlloyd acquired the container interests of Blue Star Line thus gaining entry into trans-Pacific trades. Containerisation was the most important change in shipping during the twentieth century transforming the world’s trade in non-bulk cargoes both at sea and on shore and revolutionising the world’s ports. It saw the development of a totally new class of ship, necessitated new approaches to cargo handling, and stimulated the application of electronic information technology to the recording and tracing of containers and their contents. Essentially the collection latterly held by Maersk reflects the containerised cargo interests of the most significant British shipping companies of the late twentieth century; each being absorbed ultimately into P&O Nedlloyd until finally acquired by Moller-Maersk in 2005. The first class of OCL ships, six 29,000 tonners built for the Australian service in 1969-70, could each carry 1,900, 20-foot containers and replaced four or five times as many general cargo ships and essentially similar vessels were built for ACT. Thus the changes in containerisation had a massive effect on trade.