Early years (1840-1879)
In May 1839, the Canadian businessman Samuel Cunard, together with a group of well-funded shipowners and merchants such as George Burns, David McIver, Charles MacIver and James Donaldson, founded the British & North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, commonly known as the Cunard Line. The young company had been awarded a contract by the British Admiralty to carry mail overseas. Cunard undertook to make 14-day sailings in the summer months and 4-weekly sailings in the winter between Liverpool and Boston, Halifax and Quebec, in return for which Cunard was paid £81,000 a year. The ships of the Cunard shipping company were recognizable by a red funnel with a black cap, in 1850 two narrow black rings were added, this has not changed until today, although this pattern was partly varied in the later passenger ships.
In 1840 the first ships of the line were launched, the Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia and Columbia, all but the latter entering service in the same year. They were designed by Robert Napier, who primarily built the ship's engines and was the principal consultant on the entire project. This was the beginning of worldwide passenger and freight shipping by steamships on a large scale. Britannia and Caledonia were also the first of the line's ships to capture the Blue Ribbon for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic. In 1843, the Columbia was stranded at Cape Sable (Nova Scotia), a heavy loss for the shipping company. That same year, the newly commissioned Hibernia set another record, followed in 1845 by her sister ship Cambria. Six more newbuildings and new records followed until 1850, the Cunard Line dominated the North Atlantic.
In 1850, the Blue Riband was lost to the US shipping company Collins Line. Cunard tried to keep up, but did not succeed. The reason was that the Cunard Line still had to build wooden ships, while the competition relied on iron. It was not until 1855 that the British Admiralty, not least under the impression of the Crimean War and extremely shrunken forests on the British Isles with a resulting shortage of wood, changed its views towards the iron ship. In 1856 Cunard's first iron steamer Persia reclaimed the Blue Riband. In 1863, the new Scotia, Cunard's last paddle steamer, set another record.
In 1869, the City of Brussels of the Inman Line got the Blue Ribbon, in 1870, the first record ships of the new White Star Line followed, also the successful National Line made life difficult for the Cunard Line, one had fallen behind again. The founder Samuel Cunard, who was ennobled for his merits, was spared the decline, he died already in 1865. The British Admiralty cut the subsidies to 70,000 pounds per year and at the same time transferred the Canadian mail transport to the Inman Line, in the emigrant transport the competition was also more successful.
Cunard Steamship Company Ltd. (1879–1934)
In 1879 the financial collapse occurred and the shipping company was converted into a joint-stock company as Cunard Steamship Company Ltd. Cunard commissioned several new ships, including the Bothnia and Scythia (4557 GRT each) in 1874 and 1875, as well as the Gallia (4809 GRT), Servia (7392 GRT, the shipping company's first steel steamer) and the Aurania (7629 GRT) in 1879, 1881 and 1882. All were planned as record breakers, but none could reclaim the Blue Riband for Cunard. In 1884 Cunard then bought the Oregon from the Guion Line, which had got into financial difficulties, so Cunard had a Blue Riband racer again after 20 years, followed in 1885 by RMS Etruria and RMS Umbria (7718 GRT each), further record-breakers.
A brief interlude with Inman Line and White Star Line followed between 1888 and 1892, but in 1893 the new liners Campania and Lucania reclaimed the Blue Riband. At 12,950 GRT, both were the largest passenger ships in the world at the time and epitomized luxury and comfort. Cunard's top position seemed unchallenged, Inman, Guion and National were beaten and White Star was no match. Completely unexpectedly, new competitors appeared in the form of the German shipping companies Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hapag/HAL with record-breaking ships built at German shipyards. Much to the chagrin of the British, the Germans dominated the North Atlantic for ten years.
In 1901, the American banker John Pierpont Morgan started to buy up one shipping company after the other and, if it had been up to him, also the Cunard Line. But the British did not even think about being bought out. Cunard put pressure on Parliament and got a loan of $11.7 million approved as well as annual subsidies of $732,000 to build new ships. The culmination of this building program was the two sister ships, RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania, which entered service in 1907. At 31,938 GRT, these were the largest ships in the world at the time, and at more than 26 knots, they were also the fastest; the Germans were beaten. The Mauretania held the Blue Riband for the next 22 years, also a record to this day.
In 1911, Cunard Line bought up several British shipping companies, the Anchor Line, Brocklebank Line and the passenger service of the Thomson Line, followed by the Port Line in 1916. Cunard had risen to become one of the world's largest shipping groups with liner services to North America (Cunard/Anchor), India (Brocklebank/Anchor) and Australia (Port Line).
The First World War, which broke out in 1914, also claimed heavy losses of crews and ships at the Cunard Line, among which the torpedoing of the Lusitania by a German submarine was the most tragic. The Lusitania disaster claimed 1198 lives, including many Americans, which ultimately led the United States to enter the war. After the war, reconstruction began immediately and by the mid-1920s they were back in a leading position. In 1928, the Mauretania lost the Blue Riband to the liner Bremen of Norddeutscher Lloyd. Cunard countered and immediately commissioned a new record breaker, but the collapsing world economic crisis put the project in doubt. The shipping company ran out of money and construction progressed slowly. The British Treasury stepped in and supported the project with 4.5 million pounds sterling on the condition that Cunard and White Star merge.
Cunard-White Star Line (1934-1949)
→ Main article: Cunard-White Star Line
In 1934 the merger was completed and Cunard-White Star was formed. In 1936, the new liner was put into service, the Queen Mary, at 80,774 GRT the largest ship in the world at the time. The Queen Mary then also set a new record and won the Blue Riband. In 1940, the Queen Elizabeth followed, a somewhat larger ship; at 83,673 GRT, she remained the largest passenger ship in the world until 1996.
During the Second World War, the shipping company lost four passenger ships and several freighters, but with the two passenger ships Lancastria and Laconia, more than 2,000 people lost their lives each. The two 80,000-ton ships Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, which were used as troop carriers, survived the war unscathed, however, and from 1948 onwards the two ships were once again in weekly liner service across the Atlantic. Further newbuildings followed, and the Caronia, which entered service in 1949, was the shipping company's first ship designed primarily for cruises. In 1947, Cunard bought up the remaining White Star shares and renamed itself Cunard Steamship Company Ltd. again in 1949.
Post-war years and emerging air traffic (1949-1971)
In 1952, the Queen Mary lost the Blue Riband to the United States of the United States Lines, but Cunard no longer countered. The situation on the North Atlantic began to change fundamentally. The airplane was making itself more and more inconveniently felt. In order to participate in transatlantic air traffic, the company took over the British Eagle Airways in 1960, which was then renamed Cunard Eagle Airways. In addition, the airline BOAC-Cunard was founded two years later in cooperation with the state-owned British Overseas Airways Corporation.
In the 1960s, Cunard's transatlantic services began to decline as aircraft increasingly gained the upper hand in passenger and mail traffic across the Atlantic. The two Queens were only making losses and had to be withdrawn from service, the Queen Mary in 1967 and the Queen Elizabeth in 1968. The Queen Elizabeth 2, commissioned in 1968, the last Cunard ship from a British shipyard, already heralded new times. The QE2, as she was affectionately known, was intended not only for liner service but also for cruising, as well as being of tonnage to pass through the Panama and Suez Canals. The shipping company sought its salvation in the cruise business after liner services were discontinued in the early 1970s.
Trafalgar House Investments (1971-1998)
In 1971, Cunard Line Ltd. as the shipping company has officially been called since 1962, was bought by the British industrial group Trafalgar House Investments. In 1987, the cargo division of Cunard Line was transferred to Ellerman Lines, which also belonged to the Trafalgar House Group.
There followed purchases of various cruise lines for Cunard by Trafalgar House, such as Norske Amerikalinje AS (NAL) in 1983, Norske Cruise AS in 1986 and Royal Viking Line AS (RVL) in 1993. In the early 1990s, the Cunard fleet offered a motley impression.
Carnival Corporation (since 1998)
In 1998, Trafalgar House was bought out and broken up by the Norwegian Kværner Group. Cunard came in the same year, 97 years after the attempted takeover by J.P. Morgan, now after all under the roof of a US company. The new owner was Carnival Corporation. However, Carnival was dissatisfied with the purchase price of 425 million US dollars for the block of shares already acquired in 1998 (over 68% of Cunard) and a further 205 million US dollars in the following year for the complete takeover and brought an action against Kværner, alleging that the condition of the ships handed over was considerably worse than stated when the contract was concluded. The groups finally agreed on a 50 million US dollar repayment to Carnival.
In 2003, the American Carnival Corporation formed the world market leader Carnival Corporation & plc with P&O Princess Cruises, which had emerged from the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, and reorganised its subsidiaries and cruise brands. Since then, the Cunard brand has been the responsibility of the British company Carnival plc. With the Queen Mary 2, which entered service in 2004 and was the first newbuilding under the Cunard name in 28 years, Cunard took the place of a premium brand in the Carnival Group.
Since the end of 2011, the brand's three ships have no longer been registered in Southampton but in Hamilton and have accordingly been reflagged from the UK to the overseas territory of Bermuda. In autumn 2017, a further ship was ordered from Fincantieri. It is scheduled to enter service in 2022. The ship is to be measured at 113,000 GT.
