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Fabre (Shipping company, France)

by Ivan Sache

Presentation of Fabre
House flag of Fabre

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Presentation of Fabre

The Fabre family, from the city of La Ciotat, was involved in trade and shipping in the Mediterranean Sea and to the West and East Indies since the XVth century. Cyprien Fabre started his career in the company Régis. In 1868, aged 30, he founded his own Société Cyprien Fabre et Cie and bought a few sailing ships for the service of his trade posts in West Africa.
Fabre was rapidly interested in steam navigation, then still controversial, and purchased in the next ten years one paddle ship and ten screw-propelled ships. The company developed its African line and tramping, as well as a scheduled line to Algeria via Spain. In 1879, an attempt to open a transatlantic line failed but a scheduled line was opened between Marseilles and Liverpool.

In 1881, Fabre founded the Compagnie Française de Navigation à Vapeur Cyprien Fabre & Cie and was elected unanimously president of the Chamber of Commerce of Marseilles. Using the subsidies granted by the new French law on shipping, he bought 12 ships in four years, mostly from English shipyards. In 1885, the company operated 16 steamships to Middle-East, Algeria, Brazil and Argentina (specifically for the transport of Portuguese and Italian emigrants, 1882-1905), New York and New Orleans, West Africa (line extended in 1902 to Lagos, Nigeria).
Beside its traditional activities, Fabre w