The Making of MacBrayne- A Scottish Transport Monopoly Spanning Three Centuries

Author Andrew Clark describes how as a child he became fascinated by David MacBrayne Ltd. Many decades later Andrew decided to explore that history in “greater depth”. This book is the result, a weighty tome of 2.36kg. It chronicles the operational and business history of the transport company founded in 1879 by David MacBrayne, which in its latest incarnation is CalMac Ferries Ltd. The recent declassification of archives, together with digitisation of ships’ logs and old newspapers is a treasure trove of information to delve deeper and deeper into, including David MacBrayne’s hand-written correspondence from the 1880s. Here was the story of how MacBrayne established his dominance of the west coast shipping market in the late 19th century with his canny operating techniques, only for his son Hope to later take the company to the brink before selling out and more recently the tentacles of government to choke the company’s independence.