Samuel Cunard

NAME Sir Samuel Cunard

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Founder of the Cunard Line, one of the world’s most important transatlantic steamship companies and a pioneer of scheduled ocean mail service.

BIRTH Samuel Cunard was born on November 21, 1787 in a small house behind 257 Brunswick Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was then a British colony. His birthplace was a strategic maritime port that would profoundly influence his future career in shipping.​

FAMILY BACKGROUND Samuel was the second child of Abraham Cunard (1756–1824) and Margaret Murphy (1758–1821). The Cunard family were Quakers originally from Worcestershire, England, who fled to Germany in the 17th century to escape religious persecution, taking the name Kunder. Samuel's great-great-grandfather emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania in 1683, where the family name became anglicized to Cunard.​

Abraham Cunard was a Loyalist who fled the American Revolution, moving to Halifax in 1783 after his assets were confiscated by rebels. He worked as a master carpenter for the British garrison and became a successful timber merchant and landowner. 

Margaret Murphy was Roman Catholic, her family having immigrated from Ireland to South Carolina in 1773 before also fleeing to Halifax as Loyalists a decade later. 

Samuel was the second of nine children (two girls and seven boys) in a household where his mother's alcoholism spurred him to assume responsibilities at an early age.​

CHILDHOOD Samuel's entrepreneurial instincts manifested in childhood when he sold produce from the family garden to local stores. There are also stories saying he knitted a sock while driving the family cow to pasture and sold dandelions for profit to attend nightly auctions. (1)

By age 17, he was managing his own general store, buying stock in broken lots at wharf auctions. The family motto "By perseverance" would prove prophetic for young Samuel's relentless work ethic.​

EDUCATION Samuel attended Halifax Grammar School in Nova Scotia. After his formal schooling, he gained practical business training through an apprenticeship with a shipbroker in Boston at age 18, where he honed the exceptional organizational and numeracy skills that would later define his business empire. This hands-on experience in the maritime trade provided more valuable training than traditional academic pursuits.​

CAREER RECORD Cunard became a successful merchant and shipowner in Halifax, building a fleet and diversifying into whaling, timber, and coastal trade.

1838 He emigrated to Britain.

1840, Cunard partnered with George Burns of Glasgow and David McIver of Liverpool to found the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company — later the Cunard Line.

His line introduced regular, reliable mail service across the Atlantic, transforming global communication. Within 30 years, Cunard employed 11,500 people and owned 46 vessels.

APPEARANCE Portraits and photographs show Cunard as a dignified Victorian gentleman: strong features, composed expression, neatly styled hair. He was “somewhat below middle height” and in his formative years Cunard was described as  "a bright, tight little man with keen eyes, firm lips and happy manners." (2)

Samuel Cunard

FASHION Cunard preferred conventional, conservative attire — dark suits, waistcoats, and cravats. His style reflected discipline and respectability rather than flamboyance

CHARACTER Samuel Cunard embodied the quintessential Victorian entrepreneur—ambitious, pragmatic, and relentlessly hardworking. He was admired as an excellent strategist and fair-minded man who overcame obstacles through sheer perseverance, true to his family motto. 

Cunard was long remembered for his brisk step, quick and ready movements, and an air of "push." (1)

Although a hard-nosed, pushy, and shrewd negotiator, he showed altruism. In the recession of 1817, he and another businessman provided soup kitchen facilities for Haligonians on the brink of starvation.

His most defining characteristic was his unwavering commitment to safety over speed, famously instructing his captains: "Ship, passengers and mail, bring them safely over, and safely back". This principle established Cunard Line's legendary safety record. 

He displayed remarkable resilience, navigating financial crises, evading creditors, and using his political connections to eliminate competition and secure government contracts.​

SPEAKING VOICE Accounts describe him as soft-spoken but authoritative. His voice conveyed calm confidence rather than bluster.

SENSE OF HUMOUR Not known for flamboyant wit, Cunard’s humour was understated.

RELATIONSHIPS Samuel Cunard married Susan Duffus, the daughter of William Duffus, a Halifax merchant in the wholesale dry goods trade on February 4, 1815 at Halifax. Susan (1795–1828) bore him nine children—two sons and seven daughters. His elder son Edward Cunard eventually inherited control of the Cunard Steamship Company, while his younger son William managed the family's Halifax business interests. 

Samuel's wife Susan died on February 28, 1828 due to complications after their daughter Elizabeth's birth, leaving him a widower at age 41. Though he became one of the wealthiest men in Nova Scotia, he eventually retired to England, where his descendants settled.​

Cunard worked closely with George and James Burns, Charles and David MacIver, and shipbuilder Robert Napier in founding the shipping line. His business partnerships were unusually harmonious for the age, marked by mutual respect and steadiness.

STEAMSHIPS Samuel Cunard’s career really got going when he returned to Halifax from Boston at the age of twenty-one and—displaying the sort of confident brass one normally associates with people who’ve already made their fortune—persuaded his father to rename the family business Abraham Cunard & Son, thus promoting himself by signage alone. The firm dealt in timber and shipping, two industries that in early-19th-century Nova Scotia were as essential as oxygen, tea, and people complaining about the weather.

The Cunards snapped up captured American vessels—bargain shopping on an international scale—and acquired vast stretches of timberland in Cumberland County. By the 1830s, Samuel had become the nominal head of the whole sprawling enterprise, and, as if lumber and ships weren’t enough, he decided to dabble in finance. In 1825 he put £5,000 into founding the Halifax Banking Company, which was not a small gesture for a man still building his empire. One imagines him doing it with the same casual flourish one uses to toss coins into a fountain.

The real turning point arrived in 1839, when Cunard sailed to England and audaciously submitted a bid for the British government’s transatlantic mail contract. On February 11, 1839, he proposed a fortnightly service run by three 800-ton steamships—an idea so forward-thinking it bordered on science fiction by the standards of the day. Astonishingly, he won. The result was the magnificently titled British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company, which sounds less like a business and more like a vessel for conveying dignitaries and small pianos.

Its first purpose-built steamship, Britannia, launched in 1840, departing Liverpool on 4 July and reaching Halifax ten days later. With that voyage, Cunard quietly established the world’s first scheduled transatlantic steam service, thereby shrinking the Atlantic in a way that would permanently alter global travel.

Britannia of 1840 (1150 GRT), the first Cunard liner built for the transatlantic service

Not content with merely moving mail, Cunard added passenger accommodations, essentially inventing the concept of the ocean liner. It was an inspired idea, though not always a profitable one—at least not in the early days, when the company’s finances wobbled so precariously that in 1842 Cunard had to escape Halifax creditors by covertly boarding one of his own ships from a rowing boat. This is the sort of episode that would undo most businessmen; for Cunard, it seems merely to have been an inconvenient Wednesday.

His charm, persistence, and well-tended Admiralty connections eventually paid off. Government subsidies increased, rival companies disappeared with suspicious swiftness, and the line expanded to New York, added iron screw steamers, and even pushed into Mediterranean routes. By this point, Samuel Cunard had done something rather extraordinary: he had taken the uncertain, weather-beaten business of ocean travel and turned it into a reliable timetable—an act of organisation so improbable it stands as one of the great civilising gestures of the 19th century.

MONEY AND FAME Following Britannia's maiden voyage, the novelty of the transatlantic steamship service propelled him into the spotlight, and he received over 1000 dinner invitations [2.4]. The line quickly became known as 'Mr. Cunard's Line'

Samuel Cunard amassed enormous wealth, becoming one of the richest men in Nova Scotia through his timber, shipping, and banking ventures. His fame reached its zenith when Queen Victoria created him a Baronet on March 9, 1859, honoring his contributions to British shipping and the Crimean War effort (his line provided 11 troop transports and two hospital ships). 

He died an "English merchant prince," having successfully transformed from colonial entrepreneur to British aristocrat. 

FOOD AND DRINK Early Cunard ships lacked refrigeration and therefore carried live cows for milk and chickens for eggs on transatlantic crossings. (3)

 

MUSIC AND ARTS Samuel Cunard was a member of the Sun Fire Company, which was noted not only for firefighting but also for its social life, including balls, sleigh rides, and similar festivities

Samuel Cunard's ships would later become famous for their onboard musical entertainment.

LITERATURE His surviving letters appear in official correspondence of the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, and the British Colonial Office. Their tone were functional and transactional rather than literary—very much in keeping with the standard epistolary norms of nineteenth‑century merchants and colonial officials

Author Charles Dickens sailed with Cunard on Britannia's maiden voyage in July 1840, documenting the historic journey.​

NATURE Samuel Cunard's family's timber business depended on Nova Scotia's vast forests, and he acquired extensive timber lands in Cumberland County.​

Cunard admired the maritime environment — the sea was both his livelihood and his lifelong fascination. He served as a Commissioner of Lighthouses on the Nova Scotian coast, a role to which he was especially devoted

PETS There is no strong record of him keeping pets, though many shipowners of the time kept dockyard animals or working dogs. If he kept any, they did not feature prominently in his biography.

HOBBIES AND SPORTS Samuel's life appears entirely devoted to business, with no documented hobbies or sporting activities outside his maritime commercial interests.

SCIENCE AND MATHS Cunard possessed exceptional mathematical and engineering acumen essential for steamship operations. He understood the technical specifications of ship design, engine power, and the calculations required for profitable mail contracts, specifying precise requirements: three 800-ton vessels with 300 horsepower engines for his original bid.​

He embraced new technology, especially steam power, earlier than many shipowners.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Raised in a household blending Quaker paternal heritage with Roman Catholic maternal influence, Samuel absorbed both traditions. His Quaker ancestors had fled religious persecution, instilling a family culture of resilience. However, throughout his personal life Cunard was not a religious man and was considered by many to be agnostic.

Cunard's personal philosophy centered on perseverance, exemplified by the family motto "By perseverance". 

In business ethics, he prioritized safety above all else, establishing a corporate culture that valued human life over profit or speed.​

One modern narrative history of Cunard and Brunel reports that, when offered last rites, Cunard declined and said he “did not feel and admit and believe,” and this wording has been copied into later summaries, including an online encyclopaedia entry. However, major scholarly biographical treatments and reference entries on Cunard’s life (including Canadian and Nova Scotian biographical dictionaries) do not mention this episode at all, and they do not cite any contemporary letter, medical report, or eyewitness testimony for such a statement. 

Sir Samuel Cunard by unknown artist

POLITICS A lifelong Tory, Cunard engaged actively in colonial governance. He was proposed for local assembly elections in 1826 but later withdrew his candidature.

Cunard was appointed to the Council of Twelve in November 1830, a role advising the Governor, deliberating over bills, and acting as a civil court of appeal. Reformers objected to the concentration of power among the wealthy elite, and he resigned on October 1, 1840

He was an early pioneer of racial equality, banning any kind of racial segregation on ships connected to his name. His statements regarding abolitionist Frederick Douglass's segregated passage arranged by a Cunard Agent in Liverpool in 1845 strongly suggest his anti-slavery stance, although his specific views on slavery in the 19th century are not explicitly known.

SCANDAL The most dramatic scandal occurred in March 1842 when Cunard had to escape British creditors by clandestinely boarding one of his own steamers from a rowing boat, his finances overstretched by steamship investments and land purchases. 

Critics accused him of unfair competition, alleging he used political connections to eliminate rivals like the Great Western Steam-Ship Company. His cozy relationship with the Admiralty enabled him to secure contract extensions and increased subsidies while competitors struggled.​

MILITARY RECORD During the War of 1812, Samuel Cunard volunteered for the 2nd Battalion of the Halifax Regiment militia, rising to the rank of Captain. He served the British Empire against the United States while simultaneously securing licenses to trade with American ports, demonstrating his pragmatic approach to wartime commerce. His military experience provided valuable strategic thinking that later applied to his shipping operations.​

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Physically robust in his youth and middle years, Cunard remained active well into later life.

HOMES Samuel spent his formative years in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the family established their timber and shipping headquarters. The family owned extensive property, including timber lands in Cumberland County and a country estate in Pleasant Valley. 

In his later years, Cunard retired to London, England, living in Kensington at the time of his death. 

TRAVEL Cunard's business required constant transatlantic travel between Halifax, Boston, Liverpool, and London. 

In January 1838, he accompanied relatives to England to explore land purchases on Prince Edward Island, where he became immersed in discussions about steamship technology. 

His most significant journey occurred in January 1839 when he sailed to Falmouth on the packet Reindeer, armed with letters of introduction and plans for his "ocean railway" that would revolutionize transatlantic communication.​

Cunard was among the 64 passengers aboard the maiden voyage of the Britannia in July 1840, which sailed from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then to Boston, Massachusetts. 

DEATH Sir Samuel Cunard died on April 28, 1865 at his home in Kensington, London, at age 77. He left control of the Cunard Steamship Company to his son Edward, ensuring the family legacy would continue. His remains are interred at Brompton Cemetery in London.​ His legacy continued through the Cunard Line, which became a symbol of safety, prestige, and innovation in ocean travel.

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Though not a media figure in the modern sense, Samuel Cunard's most notable public appearance was alongside author Charles Dickens on Britannia's maiden voyage in July 1840, which Dickens documented, providing valuable publicity for the new steamship line. 

His life and achievements have been featured in numerous biographical works, shipping histories, and the Cunard Line's official historical materials including the biography Steam Lion: A Biography of Samuel Cunard by John Langley.​ 

ACHIEVEMENTS Founder of the Cunard Line

Pioneer of scheduled transatlantic mail service

Established one of the most reliable early steamship companies

Set standards of safety, punctuality, and professionalism that defined ocean travel for decades

Employed tens of thousands and built a fleet of 46 vessels within three decades

Knighted for his service to British commerce and communication

Sources: (1) Dictionary of Canadian Biography (2) Shipping Today and Yesterday (3) Encyclopaedia of Trivia