chartering, bunkering, and sale of Japanese steamers to the Allied powers. In 1919 Dodwell & Co. reached a peak of success. The capital of the company had doubled and the trading profit achieved record levels unsurpassed until 1947. The inter-war period and the Second World War The inter-war period was marked by grim economic conditions. After the First World War the increasing success of Japanese companies in the struggle for a share of the world's trade, made it more interesting for them to deal directly with customers and suppliers in foreign countries. Middlemen import and export traders and ship charteres like Dodwell's had to adapt accordingly. In 1927 Dodwell & Co., now headed by Carlill after the death of his founding partner in 1925, decided to stop to trade on its own account. Instead Dodwell & Co. would act only as agent for other companies selling to Japanese buyers. The decline of the value of the Chinese Dollar to zero and an ill judged investment in the Shanghai company Sanitas Mineral Water Factory in 1932 contributed to the substantial losses of Dodwell & Co. in the 1930s. At the same time the Shanghai tea trade was losing heavily. Between 1920 and 1938 Dodwell & Co. paid dividends just on three occasions (1923, 1937 and 1938). The company survived this difficult time only because it had built up a large reserve fund of nearly £300.000 during the prosperous first two decades of the twentieth century. Only the recovery of most of the branches of Dodwell & Co. from 1938 onwards ensured that the company was well placed to face the upheavals of the Second World War, including shipping losses and the liquidation of their entire Japanese holdings by the authorities in 1941. The post war years and the loss of independence Following the End of the Second World War, Dodwell's offices in Hong Kong and Japan had to be re-opened. As a consequence of the 1949 Chinese Revolution the company was forced to close down all branches in Mainland China. Dodwell & Co. had to look elsewhere overseas for new markets. Soon new branches were established in the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and East Africa. Also in 1948, a joint venture was set up in India together with the Indian company Salem & Co., selling electrical equipment and steel tubing from Germany. Post-war recovery in Hong Kong and Japan was rapid,