James Baines & Co.

The company was founded and headed by James Baines and Thomas Miller Mackay with two junior partners, Joseph Greaves and John Taylor. Its office was located at 6 Cook Street, Liverpool. In 1858, Mackay established a separate office of the company in London. The legality of its business practices and the flexibility of its operations were controversial and often put the company under suspicion.

James Baines & Co. operated some of the finest and most famous American clipper ships at the time, such as Champion of the Seas, Flying Cloud, James Baines, Lightning, Indian Queen, Marco Polo, Sovereign of the Seas and many others. Some of the clippers Baines was able to buy at a very low price following the Panic of 1857 and the onset of the American Civil War. Besides the American vessels, the fleet of the Line contained a number of softwood vessels built in the Maritime Provinces of Canada as well as oak and teak ships built in England and Scotland.

Although it is hard to estimate the exact size of the Line's fleet as they used charter ships extensively, at its peak in 1860, the Line had a fleet of 86 ships carrying cargo and passengers out to Australia. Overall, more than 400 ships carried British immigrants to Australia during the 1850s and 1860s with the help of James Baines & Co.

In 1864, with 13 ships James Baines & Co. was the biggest single buyer of U.S. ships.

The conditions on the Line's ships often were quite appalling. The ships were dirty and poorly ventilated. It was not uncommon to have 500 passengers cramped on one vessel. On one instance, there were documented 26 dead of the 460 passengers on board of Rockhampton, when she arrived in Keppel Bay on 12 October 1863 after the 116-day voyage from Liverpool.