Although steamships began to be operated as mail couriers in the British Isles from the 1820s, they were initially employed as military vessels in naval operations against indigenous pirate vessels in Southeast Asian waters. A notable exception was the British-owned Van der Capellen, a mail steamer which plied the waters off the north coast of Java. Part of the early reluctance in adopting steamers for use as mail and passenger transports stemmed from the relatively high costs of running the coal-hungry ships, which had a low fuel mileage. From the 1850s onwards, steamers became more common as innovations in nautical technology such as the screw-propeller, iron hull, surface condenser, and compound engine. The Dutch-owned steamship Marken was operating in regional waters from at least the 1920s when it plied the route between Australia and Singapore. Primarily a cargo ship run by the shipping agent Rotterdam Lloyd Company, it continued to call at the port city right up to the early 1950s.
