Editorial

Welcome and thank you for visiting this page.

I first began this project out of curiosity, after having received a postcard in 1997 from Astoria, Oregon, with a picture of the "Peter Iredale" as a shipwreck on the beach. I had heard of the shipping activities of the Iredale & Porter Line, whilst still a boy, but it never really touched my life in any tangible form - although it seemed to have created a latent feeling for sailing ships and maritime history. A few years ago, an aunt told me that she had visited (must have been in the 1920's) the Company offices as a girl and received a guinea from Mr. John Porter. The whole extent only became significant, when the postcard arrived. The Internet provided the next positive indications that there was some history "out there" and I began to look around, thinking it would simply burn itself out, come to a dead-end - or I would lose interest.

How wrong I was!

Mrs. Edwards of the Liverpool Maritime Museum sent me the list of ships for both Peter Iredale and J Henry Iredale (his son) and a potted history. A chance meeting in cyberspace with Trevor Aiston resulted in the first homepage on his web server. My letters for information to all the major newspapers on Merseyside and in Cumbria produced a rich harvest. I really struck gold when I visited Jack Porter in Mechanicsburg, PA and was able to look through the wealth of documents he had in his archive. Also, I realised that the Porter family had to be included, as there were too many important cross-connections, which simply could not be ignored.

My original aim was to write a book, but I was quickly disillusioned, as there were hundreds of bones in the material I had, but little real meat. Then I had the idea of doing a homepage and then immediately knew, that this was the best medium to bind everything together and make the material available to those interested. So one day, maybe I'll write the book of the homepage!

Sifting, analysing and processing the information I received took a long time, as I can only work intermittently. The first results you can see in these pages.

However, the work is not yet finished and indeed, will probably never finish as new material turns up almost every day. I hope that my expertise with homepage architecture will also improve with time, so that the presentation may be more dynamic.

My heartfelt thanks to all those people who helped me. (Link to people who helped)

The Author and the late John S. Porter , May 1999, Mechanicsburg PA

The information provided in these pages is supplied in good faith for the general information of users and not for profit. Every attempt has been made to ensure accuracy, but responsibility cannot be accepted for errors or omissions anywhere on any of the pages. All creative work is subject to copyright. Reproduction is only by permission of the author and usually granted for non-commercial use.