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Captain Arthur Edward "Boy" Capel  CBE  (b 1881, d. 22 December 1919)

Here is a collection of information I have collected in my searches for information about the Chanel - Boy Capel connection. We can determine that Arthur Edward "Boy" Capel was a man of means coming from a well-to-do family whose learned his trade from his successful father. He was apparently not directly related to the upper-class Capel family well known in England at the time, his fathers parents having come from Ireland.
I have collected the following information here for my own reference and for anyone who is interested in the topic or may have something to contribute. The sources are cited inline.

References to vessels owned by Arthur Capel

The S.S. CAPELCASTLE was built in 1917 for Arthur Capel & Co. of Newport

Img: http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/industry/images/?action=show_item&item=3066

British Chamber of Commerce, Paris - 1918 - Snippet view

Steamships

Company: Capel Arthur, & Co, 138, Boulevard Malesherbes,Paris (Cie Auxiliaire de Nav),

Compagnie Auxiliaire de Navigation, 138 Boulevard Malesherbes, Paris (See A Capel & Co)

Ships

• Constance , built 1912
• Henriette - built 1913
• Isabelle - built 1913
• Marie Louise - built 1913

Company: Capel Arthur, & Co., (London) Ltd. 27 Leadenhall Street,London E.C.3

Company: Capel Arthur, & Co., (South Wales) Ltd. 70-71 Erchampe,Cardif
Ships:

• Capelcastle  built 1917
• Capelpark built 1888

Company: Capel & Co (Newcastle & Hull) Ltd., E. Exchange Buildings, Newcastle-on-Tyne

Ships:

• Capelbay   built 1895
• Axminster b 91
• Capelcourt  b 1903
• Capelmead b 1911

• 291 Capelpark, reg 1888 ( Boy Capel was Age 7 in 1888 so this was  his father, Arthur Joseph Capel's company)
• 280 Capelbay, built1895 Ship Capelbay, official number: 104280
• 283 Capelhall, reg1901 Arthur Capel & Co( London) ltd
• 282 Capelcourt, reg1903
• 290 Capelmead, reg 1911 - Capelmead, formerly Armora M110/124296 1911-1913
• 281 Capelcastle reg 1917 Record of Glasgow: SS Capelcastle (Capel Line) travelling from Durban to Glasgow.

Source:  Lloyds

Shipping Sales - Source: Nauticus Feb 22, 1919

• Capelhall (Br. s.s.), ex Baltenhall, 2,174 tons gross, 1,378 net, carried 3,650 tons d.w., built at Blyth in 1901, owned by Arthur Capel & Co. (London), Ltd., has been sold lo the Town Line (London), Ltd., Cardiff, for about £63.000.
• Capelmead (Br. s.s.), ex Armora, 1,903 tons gross, 1,153 net, carries alx>ut 3,170 tons d.w., built at Sunderland in 1911, and owned by Arthur Capel & Co. (London), Ltd., has been sold for about £80,000.
• Capelcourt (Br. s. s.), ex Hermia, 2,050 tons gross, 1,305 net. carries about 3,500 tons d. w., built at Port Glasgow in 1903, steams about 9 knots, and owned by Capel & Co. (Newcastle & Hull), Ltd., Newcastle, has been sold to the Town Line (London), Ltd., for £67,000.

Sale Planned

MOOR STEAMSHIP CO
March
Sale of Ship Planned - "Financial Аmerica" 1918, Stated that the company, London Eng., planned the sale of 19 ships to Arthur Capel & Co Ltd London for about $10,000.000 source http://books.google.com/books?id=K4IpAAAAYAAJ

Requisition Of Chartered Steamer -Report of a Court Case involving Arthur Capel & Co.

Source: Nauticus, Feb 22 1919
—The Bank Line, Ltd., owners of s. s. Quito, chartered it to Arthur Capel & Co., under a charterparty dated Feb. 16, 1915, which provided that "the steamer shall be delivered not before April 1, 1915, and that charterers should have the option of cancelling should the steamer not be delivered by April 30, 1915. It was further provided that if the steamer could not be delivered by the cancelling date, charterers if required should, within 48 hours after receiving notice thereof, declare whether they cancelled or would take delivery of the steamer. Lastly charterers were given option of cancelling the charterparty if steamer were commandeered by the Government during the currency of the charter. The vessel was not ready by the cancelling date, but the charterers did not cancel and were not asked whether they would do so or not. The vessel went into drydock to prepare for service under the charter and while there she was requisitioned on May 11. In August the owners accepted an offer from third parties to purchase the vessel subject to her being released from requisition, which did occur the following month, the Quito being released in exchange for another ship belonging to the same owners. The next day the charterers called on the owners to deliver the vessel under the charter, but the owners replied that the charter had long since become inoperative as they had been prevented from tendering the vessel. The charterers thereupon brought an action to obtain a declaration that the charter had not been dissolved by the requisition and for damages for failure to deliver the vessel. The charterers lost their case in the first instance and brought appeal from the decision given against them by Mr. Justice Rowlatt. The Court of Appeals reversed this judgment, finding for the charterers. In last resort, the decision of Mr. Justice Rowlatt that the effect of the requisition was to terminate the charterparty has been upheld by the House of Lords. The amount of the damages assessed by the Court of Appeals was £13,334. The Lord Chancellor, after stating the facts, said in reversing the Court of Appeal:
The doctrine that a contract might be put an end to by a vital change of circumstances had been repeatedly discussed * * *. He did not propose to repeat what had been said on the law of the subject, which was well settled. He had to consider the application of the law of the doctrine to the present case. The first question was whether the doctrine of frustration of the adventure as terminating the contract was excluded by the terms of the charterparty. The clauses relied on as having that effect were Clauses 26 and 31 [summarized supra]. In his opinion, neither of those clauses could have the effect of preventing the termination of the charterparty by the requisition in the present case and the detention under it. The 26th Clause provided that if the steamship should not have been delivered by the end of April, 1915, the charterers were to have the option of cancelling the charter. This option would apply if there were any delay beyond April 30, and, if the delay was through unforeseen circumstances (in other words, if it was not due to the default of the owners), it was provided by the second paragraph that the charterers might be called on to declare within 48 hours whether they cancelled or would take delivery of the steamship. It was urged for the respondents that this clause meant that only the charterers could cancel in case of nondelivery, and that however long the owners might have been prevented from delivering by unforeseen circumstances beyond their control they were bound to hold the vessel at the disposal of the charterers. He could not read this clause as having any such effect. The charter was to be for 12 months from delivery, which the owners were to make by the end of April unless prevented by unforeseen circumstances, in which case the charterers had the option of cancelling, however short the delay. If, owing to unforeseen circumstances, it became impossible for the owners to deliver under the charterparty until many months after the end of April, the whole character of the adventure would be changed. A charter for 12 months from April was clearly very different from a charter for 12 months from September. In such a case the adventure contemplated by the charter was entirely frustrated, and the owner when required to enter into a charter so different from that for which
he had contracted was entitled to say "non haec in foedera veni."

In other words, the owner was entitled to say that the contract was at an end on the doctrine of the frustration of the adventure as explained in Tamplin Steamship Co. v. Anglo-Mexican Petroleum Products Co. (32 Times L. R., 677; [19161 2 A. C, 397). It would be unreasonable to construe Clause 26 as meaning that the owners were in such a case to hold the vessel at the disposal of the charterers for an unlimited period. In the Tamplin Steamship Co. case (supra) the House of Lords was divided, three to two, Lord Loreburn, Lord Parker and Lord Buckmaster, L. C. (who concurred with Lord Parker's judgment), forming the majority, while Lord Haldane and Lord Atkinson dissented. But it would be found that the principles of law enunciated by Lord Loreburn and by the two dissentients were identical, the difference between them being as to the application of those principles to the particular circumstances of the case. The concurrence of Lord Parker and of Lord Buckmaster, L. C, with Lord Loreburn was to some extent rested on the ground that a clause in the charter providing for the case of restraint of princes would exclude the doctrine of frustration of the adventure as terminating the contract. That proposition should not, in the opinion of the Lord Chancellor, be regarded as forming part of the judgment of the House, and the judgment of Lord Parker, when scrutinized, would be found to treat that as only one of the circumstances which led him to the conclusion that in the case of the time charter which was in question the doctrine of frustration was excluded. Clause 31 could not be relied on by the respondents any more than Clause 26. Clause 31 merely meant that in case of the vessel's being commandeered the charterers might cancel at once without having to show that the detention was likely to last so long as to put an end to the contract within the meaning of the authorities.
The second question must, therefore, be determined— Did the requisition of the vessel and the detention under it constitute a change of circumstances such as to entitle the owners to treat the charter as at an end? As events showed, the release of the vessel could be procured by providing another instead, but there was no obligation on the owners to do that for the purpose of carrying out the charter. It was only after they had entered into the contract to sell the Quito conditionally on procuring her release, that the owners provided a substitute to enable them to carry out their contract of sale. The entering into the contract of sale was an act showing that the owners treated the contract of charter as at an end. Were they justified in that? In his opinion they were. They had concurred with the charterers in endeavoring to procure the release by the Admiralty of the vessel. Those efforts failed, and were not continued after June 8. On Sept. 3 the charterers learned of the release, which had been obtained by the substitution of the Mansuri, in order to carry out the sale of the Quito, and they demanded delivery. In his Lordship's opinion, the owners were entitled to reply as they did, that the contract had come to an end, as the detention had lasted so long that if the vessel were delivered in September it would be on a contract differing most materially from that provided for by the original charter. For these reasons, he thought that the appeal should be allowed, with costs here and below.
Lord Haldane differed."

SS Capelcastle  - Arthur Capel, Newport, Monmouthshire

SS Capelcastle Built in 1917 by Robert Thompson & Sons, for Arthur Capel, Newport, Monmouthshire, 3,872 Grt.

SS Capelcastle Pictures
The New Hazell annual and almanack, Volume 36 1921