After several years at sea, James Patrick (later Captain) arrived in Australia by sailing ship in 1900, at the age of 20. Qualified as a Master Mariner in 1908 he continued at sea, mainly in Asian trade, then sought over the next decade to establish his own Australian shipping line, relying on old ships discarded by others. Ample problems, mainly of competition from larger companies, beset the path to the late 1930s. Operating from at least as early as 1919, they sold their last two vessels in 1962, with the increasing rationalisation of the Australian coastal trade.

The start of the Second World War found the Company operating four ships, one being promptly replaced 1940-41:-

Caradale has a place among those ships suffering enemy damage. She was torpedoed off the New South Wales coast on 12 May 1943, though fortunately there was no explosion and she survived. The Patrick fleet, as with the numerous other Australian coastal ships, coped with war, weather and varying industrial climates to maintain the seafarers' services to the nation.

It is of interest that the Company's vessel Culcairn, which joined the fleet in 1946, had been pre-war the Anshun, well-known for its having been bombed and sunk alongside the wharf at Milne Bay. She had been refloated early in 1946, towed to Sydney and restored, becoming the largest ship owned by James Patrick & Company Pty Limited.