Seamen. LOF's first tankers LOF ordered new tanker ships, starting with the sister ships London Pride (I) and London Enterprise (I) built by Furness Shipbuilding at Stockton-on-Tees and completed in 1950. LOF became a public company on 20 March 1951. In 1952 LOF took delivery of five new tankers. Sir James Laing and Sons Ltd on the River Wear in Sunderland, completed the trio London Glory (I), London Endurance and London Spirit, while Furness Shipobuilding completed the slightly larger pair London Victory (I) and London Majesty. LOF had intended to operate a mixed fleet of tankers and dry cargo ships. However, the costs of buying new tankers rose considerably so by the end of 1953 LOF sold all of its dry cargo ships. Between 1953 and 1955 Furness completed four more tankers for LOF. London Loyalty (1954) and London Integrity (1955) were sisters of London Victory and London Majesty. London Splendour (I) (1953) London Prestige (1954) were a much larger pair: each. When LOF ordered London Splendour nearly three years earlier, some oil companies regarded this as being almost the maximum size of tanker that they could ever use. In 1959 the Admiralty bareboat chartered London Loyalty and London Integrity for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, who renamed them RFA Brambleleaf and RFA Bayleaf respectively. Subsidiaries and joint ventures In 1956 LOF in association with Philip Hill, Higginson & Co Ltd founded a subsidiary, London & Overseas Tankers, in Bermuda. LOT took a 50% interest in another Bermudian company, London & Overseas Bulk Carriers. LOT ordered six tankers and LOBC ordered two bulk carriers. In 1957 LOF led a consortium of three companies that took over the Austin & Pickersgill shipyard in Sunderland. In 1968 A&P took over another Wearside shipyard, Bartram & Sons Ltd. In 1970 LOF bought out its partners to take 100% ownership of A&P. More and bigger tankers LOF and LOT concentrated on ordering tankers as large as London Splendour and London Prestige. Splendour and Prestige, like LOF's smaller tankers, had Doxford marine diesel engines, but the ships that LOF and LOT ordered now followed the mid-1950s trend towards steam turbine engines for cargo ships. Furness Shipbuilding completed five turbine ships for the group: (1956), London Tradition (1957) and London Resolution (1957) for LOF, then Overseas Pioneer (1958) and Overseas Explorer (1959) for LOT. Each had a pair of Richardsons Westgarth turbines that developed a total of