Samuel Cornell Plant

Samuel Cornell Plant (8 August 1866 – 26 February 1921) was a British sailor who is best known as the first to command a merchant steamer plying on the Upper Yangtze River in 1900. The Upper Yangtze is the section of river stretching through gorges from Yichang to Chongqing. Plant later collaborated with Chinese merchants and the government to create Sichuan Steam Navigation Company, serving as Captain of SS Shutung and SS Shuhun, providing the first regular merchant steam service on the Upper Yangtze. He is further recognized for his contributions as Chinese Maritime Customs’ First Senior River Inspector on the Upper Yangtze. Plant installed the river's navigational marks, established signaling systems, wrote a manual for shipmasters, and trained hundreds of foreign and Chinese pilots.

In China he was known as Pu Lan Tian.

Plant was born in Framlingham, located in Suffolk, England, the third out of four children. His father, Samuel Plant, a Captain in the Mercantile Marine, commanded Reigate, for trade with India. In 1881, young "Cornell" aged fourteen, joined his father for what was to be their first and last voyage together. Captain Sam suffered a heart attack on the journey and fell from his companion ladder, dying shortly after. Young Cornell buried his father upon arrival to India in Madras and continued after his father at sea. He first worked on Iron Ship Reigate as an ordinary seaman for two years, then a year as an Able Seaman for Pacific Steam Navigation Company's Australian Service. Plant returned to Reigate as Third Mate and in 1886 obtained his Second Mate's certificate.

Plant transitioned to river exploration in the late 1880s. The Shah of Persia granted England limited permission to initiate commercial trade on the Lower Karun. Plant joined this effort on Messrs. Lynch Brothers' Euphrates & Tigris Steam Navigation Co.’s Khalifa. At age 25, when access to Upper Karun was authorized, Plant was offered command of his first vessel, Shushan. Plant explored the three upper rivers and established trade routes. In 1896 he submitted a map to the British India Intelligence Office and returned to England.

First Merchant Steamship on Upper Yangtze

Archibald John Little selected Plant in 1898 to join him in China to solve the challenge of steamship navigation on the Upper Yangtze, connecting Yichang and Chongqing. Plant provided design input for Little’s venture, SS Pioneer, and took command of the commercial steamship. In 1900, he became the first to pilot a merchant steamship unaided through that stretch. The outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion put an end to its future commercial passages and the British Navy acquired the vessel for military use, renaming it HMS Kinsha. The Boxer Rebellion, combined with the sinking of the German’s steamer, SS Suixing, on her maiden voyage in the same year and extensive railroad ambitions, delayed mercantile steam efforts for another nine years.

French Navy

With Pioneer in British military hands as HMS Kinsha, and his services declined by the Royal Navy, Plant offered navigational expertise to the French Navy. Emile Auguste Léon Hourst hired Plant on Olry for exploration from Chongqing to Suifu. Plant contracted his services to the French from 1901 -1909. When the river was low, Plant operated an Upper Yangtze Chinese native craft, guazǐchuan, "Junie" with his wife and Chinese crew. He bought property on the hills opposite Chongqing in 1905 in the same expatriate community as Little and other foreign merchants and customs officials.