(first posted 6/3/2015) Britain has a strong and long maritime heritage – the worldwide recognition of the name Royal Navy, without a country in the title, tells you that. Our merchant maritime service (or merchant navy as it is also known) is another, and given how Britain enjoys icons of history, this meeting was bound to be remembered.
In 1840, Samuel Cunard from Nova Scotia was awarded a trans-Atlantic mail steam contract and formed the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, in partnership with Robert Napier, an established Scottish ship and engine builder. Initially, the company was providing a three ship service between the UK and North America for the British Government, serving Halifax, Boston and Montreal, with the first ship, the paddle steamer Unicorn, leaving Liverpool in May 1840. From the start, the company’s ships had red funnels with narrow black bands and a black top, colours that are still evident today.
In 1879, to obtain more capital, the company was floated (sorry, I had to) as a public company named the Cunard Steamship Company Ltd, listed in London. The company continued to operate a fleet of modern steamships, regularly holding the Blue Riband for the North Atlantic crossing.
During the late 19th and early 29th centuries, the services were centred on mail, transatlantic passenger travel for the wealthy and immigration to North America from Europe. New liners were built to increase capacity, add speed and open new routes, in completion with other British, European and American operations. Such competition became an issue of national pride for many nations.
In the Great War, Cunard’s fleet was partly requisitioned by the British government for war duties, and there were inevitably losses. Most notably, the Lusitania was sunk by a German British U-boat off Ireland in 1915, which was another occasion appropriately remembered by Cunard this year.
Cunard continued to rise in the 1920s, completing the impressive Cunard building (in the middle above) on Liverpool’s waterfront and merging with the White Star Line to create an undisputed British leader in the transatlantic market.
Cunard truly secured its position as Britain’s national favourite shipping line with the introduction of the RMS (Royal Mail Steamer) Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth in 1936 and 1938 respectively. The Queen Mary was named for the consort of King George V, who reigned from 1910 to 1936, and was the grandfather of the current Queen. Popular history tells us that Cunard planned to name this ship the Queen Victoria, and when a director was despatched to ask for the King’s permission to name a ship after the “the greatest Queen this country has had” the King said his wife would be delighted. The Queen Elizabeth was named for Queen Elizabeth, consort to King George VI (1936 – 1952) and father of the Queen.
Both ships saw service as troops ships in the Second World War, with the Queen Mary gaining the nickname the Grey Ghost, for her ability to outrun German U-boats, even when carrying up to 15,000 American troops. Transatlantic services were resumed in 1946, after pretty comprehensive refits from troopships to luxury liners. The ships were retired in the late 1960s, as the market for transatlantic travel was dominated by the jet airliners.
The Queen Elizabeth caught fire during refurbishment work in Hong Kong in 1972 and sank in the harbour; the Queen Mary of course is now on permanent display in Long Beach, California.
The two ships were replaced by the new Queen Elizabeth 2. There’s another naming story here – Cunard had planned to call her Queen Elizabeth but kept the name secret; the full name was actually given by the Queen when she was launched the ship, and she became the QE2 to everyone from then on.
Now, of course, the company is in the cruise liner business, and part of the larger Carnival Corporation. A fleet of three ships, named Queen Mary 2 (2004), Queen Victoria (2007, 90,000 tons) and the Queen Elizabeth (2010, 92,000) .The Queen Mary 2 has a gross tonnage of 149000 tons, almost twice that of the RMS Queen Mary.
Cunard’s spiritual home, if no longer its official home, is Liverpool, the start of so many voyages of international travel, emigration and business for over a century. Liverpool is no longer a major port, having lost out to containerisation, but boasts an attractive and historic docks area, with a major maritime museum and some impressive architecture. It was here that Cunard brought all three Queens together on 25 May, for a public acknowledgment to Liverpool for its contribution and its history. Around 1,300,000 people turned out to see the ships meet up, convoy up the River Mersey and perform a choreographed 180 degree turn.
Quite a sight! 
Thanks for this great writeup. The history of Cunard is a great parallel to the better known story of the domination of the Royal Navy pre WWII. I am glad Cunard is still able to possess such impressive ships. To see them together in their historic home is quite moving. On this day at least, Britainia ruled the waves yet again.
Those wharfside scenes of Liverpool looks very much like Shanghai’s Bund waterfront.
While I’ve never traveled by ship, I appreciate hearing about them. My great-uncle was a captain for most of his life, primarily for the United States Military Sealift Command, and he instilled a fascination with ships in general.
I though they had planned to call the QE2 “Queen Elizabeth Two”, but when Liz launched it, she said “Queen Elizabeth the Second” so they were stuck with that?
I worked with a guy who had worked at John Brown’s when they were building QE2. He said every chip shop in the area ended up with QE2 formica for counters.
I also saw Queen Mary 2 off Oban a week or two ago. Does that count as CC effect?
I have read the QE2 was named for the the RMS Queen Elizabeth which had been retired by then, hence the Arabic 2 rather than the Roman II of a monarch.
It’s a pity none of the current fleet was, nor could be built locally. But you’ve got a globalised, financialised economy to offset deindustrialisation and offshoring of production.
Thanks for the read, Roger. This is, of course, the perfect opportunity to repeat one of Noel Coward’s observations about the decline of the UK theatres and the shipping industry. Blaming unions for both the he concluded “and that’s why there are no good showboats anymore”.
Hmm.
Those are some great shots of the Cunard’s three “Queens”. In addition to cars, I’m a quite a ocean liner buff, particular Cunard ships. I’ve been a Titanic buff since the late-90s, but when I was around 10, I got “A Picture History of the Cunard Line: 1840-1990”, that greatly expanded my knowledge in Britain’s most storied line. A very appreciated post!
For myself, I consider Cunard ships to be the real thing, and I’d take a voyage on one of them over anything else on the water. As a boy, my dad got the day off school to watch the first Queen Mary being launched.
I worked with a man whose grandfather was a doctor on the Clyde, the man still had his grandfather’s invitation from John Brown’s to the launch of job 254 (?) – heavy cream stock, metallic gold sky to the artist’s rendering of the hull on the ways. Very nice piece.
Oh, that was 50 years after the fact and on the other side of the world too.
My only ship voyages have been on the Spirit of Tassie on my the regular commute to the Huon each year and even then I went on the Jet Cats a few times, but those pale into insignificance compared to the Cunard liners, beautiful ships.
One of my relatives probably inherited the photo taken by my late grandfather aboard RMS Queen Mary? at the Port of NY, a year or so before she was retired in 1967. I don’t know how I remember, but in the foreground it showed a 1st-gen Pontiac Tempest being winched aboard. Wonder how much that added to the fare?
My grandparents could afford to travel in style like that; Grandpa was a good amateur photographer, he had great trip photos.
QM came within an ace of being capsized by a rogue wave in 1942, while carrying ~16K US troops.
I forgot to mention, Americans often hear about Ellis Island, & Britons about Liverpool, and rightly so, but don’t forget the other ports. One is Hamburg, which has a maritime museum with a room featuring transatlantic migration from continental Europe. Worth a look if you’re there.
Hapag-Lloyd is the descendant of Hamburg America Line, which used to be one of Cunard’s competitors.
some new york city queen mary fun facts:
the queen mary can barely enter the harbor because she has only ten feet of clearance under the deck of the verrazano–narrows bridge.
although the queen mary usually docks in red hook brooklyn, when she docks in manhattan, her stern reaches so far into the hudson that it is technically in new jersey.
Great writeup. Cunard buff myself. I just wonder what will become of the QE2; I think she’s destined for the breakers, unfortunately.
It’s hard to get your head around the size of modern cruise ships. The largest of these three (The Queesn Mary 2) displaces 149,000 tons.
Obviously a huge number, but let’s compare it to the displacement of an Essex class aircraft carrier (from World War II). Those ships displaced about 30,000 tons, roughly 1/5 the mass of the Queen Mary 2.
It’s hard to picture boarding a boat five times bigger than a WWII Aircraft carrier!
Even the latest USN Ford-class CVNs (Gerald, not Henry) are only around 100K tons.
Gross tonnage is a measure of enclosed volume rather than displacement by mass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_tonnage
The ships are stunning in some ways but always have too much of a top heavy look about them for my liking. But that’s how you offer such a large proportion of outside staterooms.
There is a WW II era record of the Queen Mary being struck by such huge waves the bridge windows were smashed. The ship was notorious as a slow roller and in a separate incident while trooping in heavy seas rolled beyond her designed limit and just hung there before slowly righting herself. This induced some anxiety among all aboard.
When I see maritime highrises like these I always remember those stories. Things happen despite best practices…”Herald of Free Enterprise”, for example. USS United States, SS France (pre SS Norway days) and the Normandie will remain the world’s most beautiful ships of this type.
The Normandie was a work of art, so sad it burned while “interned” in NYC. However, the British liners were consistently more popular with passengers.
Great ships for sure. My mom was on a transatlantic voyage on the original Queen Elizabeth. I’ve been aboard the original Queen Mary in Long Beach. We did a transatlantic voyage on the SS United States back in 67. Wonderful way to travel if you have the time.
I’ve been fortunate enough to cross the pond several times on a Cunarder. Most memorably on the QE2 in a Force 10 gale. There’s nothing like the QM2 afloat, the other massive ships are just cruise ships, the QM2 is a true liner.
That must have been quite the event with three historic ocean liners in one location. I would have liked to have been there.
“During the late 19th and early 29th centuries” -wow that’s quite a time jump!
These are beautiful ocean liners, all of them. Symbols of a past that will never come again.
A friend of mine is currently visiting Europe, having left NYC to visit Ireland and the continent on May 1, the 100th anniversary of his great grandmother’s sailing on the Lusitania’s final trip.
As an ex-Haligonian, I could take issue with the spiritual home of Cunard being Liverpool :-). The Cunard Line was certainly the most famous product of Nova Scotia maritime enterprise in the late 19th century, but that tiny place had a huge portion of world merchant shipping tonnage during the era of wooden shipbuilding.
In the 1960’s there was still a Cunard Fuels company in Halifax, a residential coal and furnace oil supplier.
A great piece of work on a fascinating topic. I appreciate getting the background on the Cunard Line. Although I have never set foot on one, I love those graceful ocean liners of old. This poster has been framed and hanging on my office wall for years.
Dockside classic, that’s classic!
“Liverpool is no longer a major port, having lost out to containerisation, but boasts an attractive and historic docks area, with a major maritime museum and some impressive architecture.”
Hmmm. I thought Liverpool was famous for something else. Some kind of bugs or something.
Curbside Classic, Ocean Liner Style.
The USS United States, docked on the Delaware River in Philadelphia for the last 20 years.
Will it ever be rescued? Or succumb to the scrappers…
It still holds the Blue Riband for fastest crossing (west-to-east, regular Atlantic service).
Beautiful ships,all of them. When I lived in Brooklyn, I was very close to the Narrows, so I got the opportunity to witness the QMll and the QEll leaving NY harbor in January 2008 on the anniversary of the QElls last transatlantic voyage.Seeing these magnificent liners passing throuigh the Narrows under the Verrazano bridge and heading out to the open sea accompanied by Coast Guard boats and a small fleet of private crat is a sight I`ll never forget.All the better because it was at night and these ships were lit up like floating cities.
I’m more of a P&O/Orient Line fan.
Joke from childhood – “The Queen Elizabeth is docking in New York tomorrow. I Cunardly wait!”
The auto world equivalent joke: “I drive a Rolls-Cunardly. It cunardly roll…”. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
I commented, but..the usual, and so, the usual. Please.
The Queen Mary, which as mentioned is on display in Long Beach CA, has been in the news recently. Apparently the company that runs the ship for the city has not fone the required maintenance, so there is some fear that she could even capsize.
As the bottom of the ship is likely a few feet above the harbor floor, if not sitting on the mud already, I consider the “capsizing” threat as likely a bit of hyperbole. Settling a few feet into the mud as the hull disintegrates is more likely, but hardly dramatic. Seeing the QM in permanent port, with a berm around the perimeter of the hull, reminds me of seeing a race horse in a paddock or a race car in a museum. Not doing what it was built for.
However, the Normandie managed to capsize while in port, though only after the upper decks were filled with water from fighting a fire.
I’m from Halifax and concur with Robadr that Cunard was well known for his connection to the city.
I crossed the Atlantic twice in Cunard ships and it was pretty exciting for a 10 year old. Both times were in the winter and I remember the bow plunging into the huge waves. I also distinctly remember the double clock tower building on the Liverpool waterfront.
Crossed the Atlantic on the SS Flandre at the age of 4 yrs in 1962. Due to a upcoming dock strike, The French Line offered us 1st class accommodations if we departed the NYC docks 6 days earlier than scheduled for Southampton, England. On return, we were relegated to steerage and I slept in a swinging hammock that my brothers had to lift me into.
On the next visit to the UK in 1968, all jet service as most trans-Atlantic ocean liner service had ceased.