On the morning of 19 January 1839, a combined Royal Navy and East India Company force assembled off the south-west coast of Arabia. In addition to a frigate, a cruiser and an armed schooner, transports carried 700 British and Indian troops. Their purpose was the seizure of the near-derelict port of Aden. The ensuing naval bombardment quickly reduced the town’s crumbling fortifications to rubble; despite a gallant local defence, the invading troops soon overwhelmed the inadequately armed Arabs. Within a matter of hours, the Union flag was hoisted and Aden became a British territory. The reasons for the capture of Aden were primarily maritime, relating to the successful experiments with steam-powered vessels on the route between Bombay and Suez, and the need to establish a convenient coaling station. They were also sub-imperial, concerning British India’s regional security, the promotion of its commercial interests, and the forward outlook of the Bombay presidency. This essay examines those early experiments, and in particular the first voyage of the Hugh Lindsay in 1830; the challenges – technical, geographical and political – faced by the pioneers; and the reasons why Aden emerged as the key port for Britain and India on the ‘overland’ route.

The enormous economic and strategic importance of India within the British Empire meant that the safety and efficiency of communications with the sub-continent were always of paramount concern to imperial officials. Before the advent of the steamship, the railway, the electric telegraph and the Suez Canal, correspondence between Britain and India was slow and unreliable. With a fair wind, a typical East Indiaman might take at least five months to sail to Calcutta via the Cape of Good Hope, a voyage of more than 11,000 miles. Ships crossing the Indian Ocean had to await a favourable monsoon to assist their passage and this could add weeks or even months to a voyage. The distribution of mails – or daks – around the sub-continent was problematic and in general it took two years to receive a reply to a letter sent to India. This was not an issue for the day-to-day activities of the East India Company: the Cape route was familiar and secure and avoided the costly requirements for warehousing and the transhipment of bulk goods. But it did pose difficulties in time of war or when a situation required the rapid transmission of orders and information.