Chris Hartnoll, the founder of Singapore-based Sea Consortium and X-Press Feeders, has died. He was aged 89.
Hartnoll was born in Tabora, Tanganiyka in May 1926, the oldest of two sons born to Amyas Victor Hartnoll, an officer in the Colonial Administration.
He is said to have developed his taste for the sea at a young age. At the age of 16, he went to The Worcester, a school to prepare young men entering the Merchant Navy.
He joined Alfred Holt’s Blue Funnel Line as a cadet with his first voyage in 1944 taking him across the Atlantic to New York and then to India and Australia.
Blue Funnel’s traditional trades to South East Asia and the China coast resumed after the war, and he visited Singapore for the first time in 1945.
He later applied to the Singapore Harbour Board in 1953 and was interviewed by their London representative and was offered the job of berthing officer.
Six years later, Hartnoll who had taken Singapore citizenship joined APL as Port Captain; a move into the commercial business of a shipping company, and what was to prove a very a useful learning experience for what was to come.
Between the early sixties and seventies he had various jobs in Malaysia and Indonesia before starting Sea Consortium in 1972.
Using his extensive contacts with top management at the leading liner companies of the day, he set about establishing a logistics ocean transport group based on the hub and feeder concept.
Hartnoll retired from direct management in 1992 when his son Tim took over the reins as managing director, but stayed on as chairman until 2012.
“We are all very saddened to hear this news, and our thoughts go to his wife Gethin, his three children Sharon, Sue and Tim,” said a spokesman for X-Press Feeders.
“Those of us who have known Chris will miss him greatly as an example of what determination and hard work can do.”
