ALPHONSE FONDERE

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aukepalmhof
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Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

ALPHONSE FONDERE

Post by aukepalmhof » Mon May 20, 2019 9:00 pm

The following I got from Mr. Raul Macedo da Fonseca with a few additional remarks from me.

The Congo (Brazzaville issued in 1976 a set of stamps showing vessel used on the River Congo.
Two stamps with face values of 5.00 and 30.00F showed us the sternwheel steamer
ALPHONSE FONDÉRE. Information on this vessel is scare, some photographs have appeared on the internet mostly dating from between 1940/50.
There were two stern wheelers with the same name on the river. The first one owned by Compagnie Messageries Fluviales du Congo (CMFC) the company was founded in 1899. This company later merged with Compagnie Générale em Transport in Afrique (CGTA) founded in 1910. CGTA acquired later a sternwheeler with the same name. The stamp shows us the CGTA acquired vessel.

Information on this two vessel was taken from documents reproduced in Les Enterprises Coloniales Françaises (http://www.enterprises-coliales,fr) especially those published in Les Annales Coloniales, which are also on line on http://www.gallica.bnf.fr
As for the first of this sternwheelers she must have been acquired by the CHFC in the year 1912 and commenced service by the end of the year.
She was named in honour of Alphonso Fondére (1865-1930) one of the French pioneers of colonization in Africa, who for many years was chairman of the CMFC board.
In a report to shareholders, dated 07 May 1912, there is information about the purchase of “our new ship ALPHONSE FONDÉRE which began its service during the last quarter of the year”. The company’s balance sheet dated 05 April 1913, for the year 1912, warned that the increase in expenses relating to the item “ships” had been higher in 1912 than in the previous year because of the purchase of a 300 ton vessel and a 50 ton screw vessel. He further adds that a sum relating to a 300 ton vessel a 100 ton ship the VICTOR-LARGEAU, now at the present time in the Congo, had been paid to the builders and equipment suppliers.

Still, on the ship in question, the report of 02 April 1914 gives a list of all the vessels owned by the company (ships, barges and whalers), adding that all these new vessels entered service in the last quarter of 1913. In addition to these, in which ALPHONSE FONDÉRE is included, three other vessels are still under construction. The report also adds that a certain amount of money has been spent for the construction of a facility “which allows us to build and repair the largest units in our fleet currently represented by 300 ton vessels.
Of the first ALPHONSE FONDÉRE there is not any information more of her fate.

The second ALPHONSE FONDÉRE was bought by the CGTA and completed in 1929. The Courier Colonial Illustré also available on http://www.gallica.bhf.fr of 15 September 1929 page 35 and 36 is tracing a short history of the CGTA. The paper wrote that a new vessel the ALPHONSE FONDÉRE was launched last month in Brazzaville. The steam vessel could carry 300 ton and tow two barges of each 300 ton.
That she are two distinct homonymous vessels is clear in the expression “new unit” used by the Courrier’s editor who certainly knew well the development of the African river transport system.

I am not sure if the steam vessel was built by the company, or only assembled by Société Chantier Naval de N’Dolo (CHANADO). This company was incorporated in CGTA on 11 October 1927, with its registered office in the former Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) and administrative headquarter in Antwerp, Belgium. It is known that she performed assembly and repair work on the yard, including that of the 500 ton sternwheeler AFRICA as well on her two 400 ton barges she towed. Also the yard they worked on (construction or assembly of sternwheelers and barges).
(The ALPHONSE FONTÉRE was built I believe by CHANADO, the Congo River is navigable by seaships only to Matadi, there are rapids upstream of Matadi which are not navigable for any vessels, so I believe only the steam engine for the vessel was built in Belgium by Cockerill.The ALPHONSE FONDÉRE did have passenger accommodation. She was in service till after World War II but her fate is not known, most probably abandoned and rusting slowly away on the banks of the river.)
This latest info is available on: https://www.ray-scripophile.be/index.ph ... -s-c-a-r-l
http://www.albert-gieseler.de/dampf_de/ ... t861.shtml
I hope in this short story to have contributed to the knowledge of this two vessels that were part of the history of inland navigation on the Congo River.
Raul Macedo da Fonseca.

Congo (Brazzaville) or Congo Peoples Republic 1976 5f and 30f sg 504 and 508, scott ?
Attachments
alphonse fondere 2.jpg
1976 ALPHONSE FONDERE (2).jpg

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