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This chapter introduces the formation of the United Africa Company and explains actions taken to secure shipping space. It discusses Elder Dempster and other merchants and organisations’ reactions to the changes made by the Company in the declining economic climate. It also discusses The Great Depression after 1929 and the resulting sharp decline in shipping activity and West African trade, which was in part contributed to by the breakdown in the financial organisation of the Royal Mail Group. The chapter ends with a description of Lord Kylsant’s failings, downfall, and eventual conviction but focuses on Elder Dempster’s relationship with the United Africa Company, and analyses the disagreements and negotiations made between the two.

From the late 1940s, the pace of political change in the Gold Coast was very rapid. Not all companies were as directly caught up in political developments as the merchant firms belonging to the Association of West African Merchants, but after the war management in all sectors found their activities affected by anti-colonial nationalism. Sir Gerald Creasy's proposals for the localization of the United Africa Company (UAC) were made within days of the Accra riots of February 1948, and by the end of March the Colonial Office was considering the ways in which the colony's import and retail trade might best be reformed. This chapter explores the ways in which British companies were affected by anti-colonial nationalism from c.1947. It also examines the impact of the eruption of anti-colonial protest in 1948 on the companies' relations with the colonial and imperial governments, and the consequences for British firms of both the introduction of African ministerial government in 1951 and of the development of nationalist politics between 1951 and 1957.

This chapter discusses the effects of the Second World War on the British shipping industry. It provides an analysis of the loss of seamen and vessels in comparison to the previous world war, and describes the subsequent trading conditions of West Africa. It also presents the establishment of the West African Co-Ordination Committee, formed by Elder Dempster, John Holt and the United Africa Company and comments on their actions made on behalf of the Ministry of War Transport in 1940.