s‘Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.’ Winston ChurchillThese days, the inspiration gurus are constantly exhorting one to think “outside the box”, to set aside, somehow, your normal way of thought to arrive at a new mind-set, perhaps on an old problem. One day, someone thought outside the box and invented a box that swept the maritime world of shipping, namely the “container” into which “break-bulk” cargo was to be placed, “inside the box”, for efficient shipping by sea and equally efficacious movement by land. As time is running out for those who lived, worked and shipped “outside the box”, we are here to spare a few words about people that for all their existence never thought “inside the box”, from time almost immemorial until the later 1950s.As Jens Alers, managing director of Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement in Bermuda has kindly written for your edification: “A relatively simple steel box has had a bigger impact on cargo transportation than any other technological innovation ever did, including steam and internal combustion engines. The standard shipping container (either 20 ft or 40 ft long) revolutionised the worldwide logistics business.That ‘unitisation’ made general cargo transportation incredibly productive, secure and cheap, because it is totally modular and made secure door-to-door delivery, by sea, by rail and by road, possible. Totally globalised just-in-time production processes only became possible because of the omnipresent TEU (Twenty feet Equivalent Unit) and the FEU (Forty feet Equivalent Unit) containers.”In other words to paraphrase the complex Winston Churchill, out of the intense complexity of transporting and shipping cargo in individual wrappers of various types came the incredible simplicity of shoving it all into modular lockable boxes. Like many simple but elegant inventions, it is unlikely in the world of shipping that the “container” will ever be surpassed.Its creator in 1956 was an American of Scottish descent, Malcom Purcell Mclean, so described at his death, aged 87, in 2001: “A true giant, Malcom revolutionised the maritime industry in the 20th century [with] his idea for modernising the loading and unloading of ships, which was previously conducted in much the same way the ancient Phoenicians did 3,000 years ago.”We are all familiar with (and indeed utterly dependent upon) the stacks of containers that appear weekly over the horizon on the ships of the Bermuda Container Line and Somers Isles Shipping Ltd. Those shipments are indicative of the precarious existence we shall always have on this”‘second most remotest place” on Earth, for they are more than an umbilical cord, but rather must be an unending pipeline feeding all manner of supplies into the Island. Hence we actually live from week to week, and in the event of another 9/11 that might interrupt shipping as well as air transport, it is hoped that the government has a secret agreement with the United States Atlantic Fleet of carriers and whatnot to take us all to the great USA. Perhaps, though doubts arise given its now diminutive size, the Royal Navy might be able to transport some people to Britain and the European Union of which all Bermudians are now citizens so we have right of free entry, unlike the illegal migrants now transiting the Mediterranean in any type of boat that floats.Thinking about the past “outside the box”, the former importation of goods into Bermuda was what was known as break-bulk, not only for things but for people as well, for until the invention of specialised “cruise ships” (which some might think are large containers), such individuals were but one part of the cargo of a ship, as its primary function was the movement of goods. One of first “people-container ships” specially made for the transport of good souls, especially rich ones, for Bermuda was the Furness Bermuda Lines’ elegant Bermuda, the first of the ‘millionaires ships’, in service in 1928.Before containers, goods were shipped in individual boxes, barrels, bales, bags, crates and many other methods of enclosing goods for a long sea voyage. Each item had to be manhandled, making the job of loading and off-loading cargo one of the most labour intensive of the maritime trades. The storage of items in the holds was a specialised business, not only for the preservation of the cargo, but to ensure that the ship was not subject to the shifting of cargo in transit, a dangerous situation for any vessel. The process of loading or unloading a ship took close cooperation between the ship’s officers, the stevedoring firm and the dockworkers or longshoremen.Given the fact that the docks represented the major chokepoint in the life of Bermuda, difficulties often arose between the longshoremen and the stevedoring company, with resulting strikes of labour that could potentially cripple the island. Containerisation meant fewer personnel on the docks, but that place will always be the chokepoint of importation of goods into Bermuda, as most of what we import for eating and living comes through the wharfs of Hamilton.Many items could not be packaged or boxed and were shipped as is, such as the great cast iron plates that make up the “walls” of Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, one of Bermuda’s greatest monuments of the mid-Victorian period. Another industrial example shipped without wrappers would be the great wheels for a winch and accompanying Ormerod steam engine for a St. George’s boatyard, recently saved from demolition by the National Museum.The auction of cargo from ships wrecked on the reefs gives some idea of the range of goods being imported into the island. The Merchant, bound for Bermuda from New London was carrying beef and pork in barrels and half-barrels, hams, lard, cheese, superfine flour, bread, corn, peas, potatoes, nuts, candles, soap, tea, brandy, cider, and some dry goods, but ended up on the rocks in March 1807. The Iristo, wrecked in March 1937, bound for Bermuda and Demerara was carrying cattle feed, hay, flour, 200 barrels of gasoline, a steamroller and a fire engine. Until 1937, you name it and it had to come as cargo by sloop or ship.Now that Texas and California grow Bermuda Onions and the Easter Lily trade started to die with the demolition of half of St. David’s Island, all we export these days are empty containers. Excepting perhaps those that contain the worldly possessions of workers of all manner and shades who are leaving Bermuda to the declining devices of our creation, in our failure to understand the true nature of the various ‘import-export businesses’ on which this Island and its people are utterly dependent.Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum of Bermuda, incorporating the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments may be made to director[AT]bmm.bm or 704-5480