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Sir Samuel Cunard

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Sir Samuel 1st Baronet Cunard

(born Nov. 21, 1787, Halifax, Nova Scotia — died April 28, 1865, Kensington, London, Eng.) Canadian-British merchant and shipowner. He became prosperous in commerce and began laying plans in 1830 to establish mail service between England and North America. He went to England in 1838 and in 1839 cofounded the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Co., known as the Cunard Line. In 1840, four Cunard liners began the first regular service across the Atlantic Ocean.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Sir Samuel Cunard
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Cunard, Sir Samuel (kyūnärd'), 1787-1865, Canadian pioneer of regular transatlantic steam navigation, b. Halifax, N.S. The son of a United Empire Loyalist, he became a leading businessman of Nova Scotia and engaged in banking, lumbering, shipping, and shipbuilding enterprises. His fleet at one time numbered some 40 vessels. He was interested in the development of steam navigation and owned shares in the Royal William, the first Canadian steamer to cross the Atlantic (1833) from Canada to England. When the British government invited bids (1838) for carrying mail to and from Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston, Cunard went (1839) to England and presented to the admiralty such carefully considered plans for a line of steamships that he received the contract. In association with others, he formed the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, which in 1840 placed four ships in operation, establishing the first regular steamship service between the continents. This was the beginning of the noted Cunard Line.

Bibliography

See F. E. Dodman, Ships of the Cunard Line (1955); S. Fox, Transatlantic: Samuel Cunard, Isambard Brunel, and the Great Atlantic Steamship (2003).

 
 

 

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more