Cap badge.
The company was founded by W. A. Souter in 1906 and named after the Sheaf River that ran through his home city of Sheffield, although the company was based in Newcastle. Starting out in the Baltic, Biscay and Mediterranean trades the company operated in both deep sea tramping and the North East coal trade between the wars. The company suffered heavy losses during the Second World War. At the end of the 1950s it moved out of deep sea tramping and into the iron ore trade, acquiring bulk carriers from the 1960s. Its subsidiary Bamburgh Shipping Co. Ltd was sold to Ben Line in 1976. The remaining ship management side of the business was taken over by Danish shipbuilders Burmeister & Wain and traded as Souter Hamlet.