Samuel cunard biography

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive. Type your email…. Continue reading. November 27, September 23, scastaff. Agreement of Co-Partnership One of the oldest records in the Cunard archive is an Agreement of Co-partnership signed by Samuel Cunard and partners in May Cunard diversified his family's timber and shipping business with investments in whaling, tea imports and coal mining, as well as the Halifax Banking Company and the Shubenacadie Canal.

Samuel cunard biography

The whaling ships, sent far into the Southern Atlantic, seldom if ever turned a profit. Cunard experimented with steam, cautiously at first, becoming a founding director of the Halifax Steamboat Company, which built the samuel cunard biography steamship in Nova Scotia inthe long-serving and successful SS Sir Charles Ogle for the Halifax—Dartmouth Ferry Service.

Although Royal William ran into problems after losing an entire season due to cholera quarantines, Cunard learned valuable lessons about steamship operation. He commissioned a coastal steamship named Pochohontas in for mail service to Prince Edward Island and later purchased a larger steamship Cape Breton to expand the service. Cunard's experience in steamship operation, with observations of the growing railway network in England, encouraged him to explore the creation of a Transatlantic fleet of steamships, which would cross the ocean as regularly as trains crossed land.

He went to the United Kingdom seeking investors in He set up a company with several other businessmen to bid for the rights to run a transatlantic mail service between the UK and North America. It was successful in its bid, the company later becoming Cunard Steamships Limited. In the company's first steamship, the Britanniasailed from Liverpool to HalifaxNova Scotia, and on to Boston, Massachusettswith Cunard and 63 other passengers on board, marking the beginning of regular passenger and cargo service.

Establishing a long unblemished reputation for speed and safety, Cunard's company made ocean liners a success, in the face of many potential rivals who lost ships and fortunes. Cunard's ships proved successful, but their high costs saddled Cunard with heavy debts byand he had to flee to England from creditors in Halifax. Cunard divided his time between Nova Scotia and England but increasingly left his Nova Scotian operations in the hands of his sons Edward and William, as business drew him to spend more time in London.

Cunard made a special trip to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick inwhen his brother Joseph Cunard 's timber and shipping businesses in New Brunswick collapsed in a bankruptcy that threw as many as people out of work. Cunard took out loans and personally guaranteed all of his brother's debts in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Boston. Joseph Cunard moved to Liverpool, England where Samuel helped him re-establish his shipping interests.

Cunard throughout his personal life was not a religious man and was considered by many to be agnostic. On his deathbed, Cunard declined last rites and declared he "did not feel and admit and believe. Douglass's passage from Liverpool, but I can assure you that nothing of the kind will again take place on the steamships in which I am connected.

Cunard owned a number of companies in Canada. After his death and changes to the British mail contract, his partners in England dropped his Canadian service and it was 50 years before his ships returned to Canada. In Cunard was made a baronet by Queen Victoria. He is buried at Brompton Cemetery in London. 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 from Canada to England. When the British government invited bids for carrying mail to and from Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston, Cunard went 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 placed four ships in operation, establishing the first regular steamship samuel cunard biography between the continents. This was the beginning of the noted Cunard Line. See F. Dodman, Ships of the Cunard Line ; S. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Since the devaluation of Island currency reducing the pound sterling to 16s. Although early in life Cunard was imperious, he learned diplomacy and became a skilful and persuasive negotiator. His contemporaries admired him for the contribution to transatlantic communication by the line popularly called by his name.

Dividends which had been eight per cent under the old partners, dropped to two per cent or less. He was one of the charter members of the Halifax Athenaeum established in December Most of his local activities were tapering off in the s; he ceased to be lieutenant-colonel of the 2nd battalion of the Halifax militia inand after 19 years as president of the Halifax Steam Boat Company, he resigned in One of his first official samuels cunard biography, on 9 Aprilhad been as commissioner of lighthouses on the Nova Scotia coasts.

Peter Lynch, a prominent Halifax barrister, recalled Cunard as cool, calculating, a man of keen perception whose whole mind was devoted to carrying out any project he had in hand. Nevertheless Cunard was admired at home and abroad as a successful colonial and for his contributions to the steamship trade. He was one of the first native Nova Scotians to build a business empire, but, like the successful British businessmen and officials who made their fortunes in the colonies, he retired to England where his descendants settled.

Phyllis R. The account books, ledgers, and letter books of the Halifax branch of S. In Mr J. Noble Foster, managing director of S. The Cunard Steamship Company archives were deposited at Liverpool University inand cover the period from about to However, most of the manuscript material dates from the incorporation of the company inand there is little from the period when it was a private partnership and when Samuel Cunard was active.

Professor Francis E. Hyde has been commissioned to write a history of the Cunard Steamship Company and an inventory is being prepared. There is material collected by the publicity department of the company and copies of Cunard material from other repositories. Francklyn which were handed down to his descendants are now at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia.

Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Dept. Cunard to R. Napier, 13 Juneand another dated Thursday morning. Halifax County Court of Probate Halifaxno. Cwill of Abraham Cunard; no. Liverpool Transcript18 May Novascotian— Weekly Chronicle Halifax— East India register and army list London— East-India register and directory London— Liverpool— Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men who have died during the last thirty years.

Orchard, The second series of the Liverpool Exchange portrait gallery : being lively biographical sketches of some gentlemen known on the flags. Liverpool,— Babcock, Spanning the Atlantic New York, Blakeley, Glimpses of Halifax— Halifax, Bolger, Prince Edward Island and confederation— Charlottetown, Brinnin, The sway of the grand saloon : a social history of the north Atlantic New York, Cameron, The Pictonian colliers Halifax, Conrad, —Thones Kunders and his children.

Wilmington, Del. Edwin Hodder, Sir George Burnsbart. Philips, The East India Company— 2nd ed. Frank Staff, The transatlantic mail Southampton, Eng. Stairs, Family historyStairsMorrow ; including lettersdiariesessayspoemsetc. Halifax, Macmillan Toronto,— Source: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style 16th edition.

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