Evan Thomas, Radcliffe and Company was one of the more prosperous and best-known of Cardiff-based shipowning companies, established in 1882 by a Ceredigion sea captain, Evan Thomas, and a Merthyr Tydfil businessman, Henry Radcliffe. Prior to 1939 one of the principal activities of the company was the transportation of Welsh steam coal, this trade reaching its peak in the years immediately prior to World War I.