In May 1840 the 648 gross ton paddle
steamer SS Unicorn, the company's first
steamship, made the company's first
transatlantic trip. Under the direction
of Captain Douglas, she carried 24
passengers, including Edward Cunard, on
a trip lasting 14 days, at an average
speed of 8 knots, thereby meeting the
contract requirement of a crossing in a
fortnight. Regular passenger and cargo
service by steamship was inaugurated by
the paddle steamer Britannia, the first
ship commissioned by the company. On 4
July 1840 she sailed from Liverpool to
Halifax, arriving in 12 days, then to
Boston in 2 days 8 hours more.
Cunard faced many competitors from
Britain, France, the United States and
Germany, but survived them all. This was
mainly due to a great focus on safety.
Cunard ships were usually not the
largest or the fastest but they earned a
reputation for being the most reliable
and the safest. The prosperous company
eventually absorbed Canadian Northern
Steamships Ltd and Cunard's principal
competitor, the White Star Line, owners
of the ill-fated RMS Titanic and the HMS
Britannic.
Between 1914 and 1918 Cunard Line built
its European headquarters in Liverpool.
The grand neo-Classical Cunard Building
was to be the third of Liverpool's
'Three Graces'. The headquarters were
used by Cunard until the 1960s.
For more than a century and a half,
Cunard dominated the Atlantic passenger
trade and was one of the world's most
important companies, with the majority
of their liners being built at John
Brown's Shipyard, Clydebank, Scotland.
Its ships played important roles in the
development of the world economy, and
also participated in all of Britain's
major wars from Crimea to the Falklands
War, when Cunard's container ship
Atlantic Conveyor was sunk by an Exocet
missile.
The line began to decline in the 1950s
as speedy air travel began to replace
ships as the main transporters of
passengers and mail across the Atlantic.
Cunard tried to address this by forming
BOAC-Cunard Ltd in 1962 with the British
Overseas Airways Corporation to operate
scheduled air services to North America,
the Caribbean and South America. It was
dissolved in 1966. In 1971, Cunard Line
was acquired by British shipping and
industrial conglomerate Trafalgar House,
which held the line until its takeover
by Kvaerner in 1996. In 1983 Cunard took
over the luxury cruise line Norwegian
America Line, and in 1994 another luxury
cruise company, Royal Viking Line.
For much of the late 20th century and
the first few years of the 21st the
line's only vessel making transatlantic
crossings was the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2.
From 2004 the "QE2's" service was
limited to cruising (mostly from the UK)
and the annual world cruise, while the
transatlantic route was taken over by
the new RMS Queen Mary 2, the first
ocean liner to be built in 30 years and
the largest passenger ship of any type.
In 1998, Cunard became one of a number
of lines owned by Carnival Corporation,
now Carnival Corporation & plc. On 1
January 2005 the business, assets and
liabilities of Cunard Line Ltd were
transferred to Carnival plc, ending the
Cunard name as a business entity - the
name still appears on the side of Queen
Mary 2 and sails under the Cunard brand,
but it is controlled by Princess Cruises
in California.
