Founded in 1908, and having operated until 1936, the Dutch shipping company “Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd N.V.” (KHL) had its headquarters in Amsterdam. It lasted until 1981. The company served routes from Europe to South America. The company’s predecessor had been the “Zuid-Amerika Lijn”, founded in 1899. This company had gone bust in 1908.
However, the Dutch trade company “Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij” insisted on the company’s not giving up. Consequently, a new company, the KHL, came up. The company got sufficient funds to continue to serve the routes to South America. In the Great Depression, the company again got into financial trouble and went bankrupt. In that situation, “Wm. H. Müller & Co.” and the “Koninklijke Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij” (KNSM) came together and founded a new company in order to carry on the old company’s services. So the company’s original name continued to be used.
After the Second World War, the company gave up passenger transport in 1958. KNSM completely took over KHL in 1970, and yet KHL continued to be autonomous. KNSM became part of “Nedlloyd” in 1981. The name KHL vanished in the same year. Postcard lovers find and collect pictures of its ships on historical postcards.
