TRANSATLANTIC QUEENS
CHAPTER 2
C
CUNARD LINE: THE EARLY YEARS
unard Line owes its origin to the lucrative mail contract offered to tender by the British Government through the Admiralty in 1838. Samuel Cunard was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, on 21 November 1787. He and two brothers were ship owners with a sizeable fleet of sailing ships, but these were not suitable for the mail contract as they relied on the vagaries of the wind and were unable to keep to a reasonable schedule on the North Atlantic. Steamships offered a solution, but these were a relatively new concept. Under the direction of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Great Western Railway, which ran from London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads, formed the Great Western Steamship Company to extend their service from Bristol to New York. Their first ship was the wooden paddle steamer Great Western, which, at 1,320gt, was the largest steamship in the world when she was commissioned
ABOVE Side elevation and deck plan of Britannia of 1840.
BELOW The wooden-hulled paddle steamer Britannia inaugurated Cunard’s services in 1840.
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