Cunard & Co.

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Cunard Line is a Anglysh owned shipping company based at Cunard House in Port Royal, Anglyn. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the Great Sea for over a century. In 1839, Wessex-born Samuel Cunard was awarded the first Anglysh transatlantic steamship mail contract, and the next year formed the Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company to operate the line's four pioneer paddle steamers on the Liverpool–Marsellies–Mormant route. For most of the next 30 years, Cunard held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic voyage. However, in the 1870s Cunard fell behind its rivals, the White Star Line. To meet this competition, in 1879 the firm was reorganized as Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd to raise capital.[1]
The Anglysh Government provided Cunard with substantial loans and a subsidy to build two superliners needed to retain its competitive position. Guiana held the Blue Riband from 1909 to 1929. In the late 1920s, Cunard faced new competition when the Germans, Italians and French built large prestige liners, Cunard added two of its own new superliners Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, it was at this Cunard merged with White Star to form the Cunard-White Star Line with Cunard owning two-thirds of the new company. Cunard later purchased White Star's share in 1940; the name reverted to the Cunard Line in 1950. Upon the end of the Great War, Cunard operated twelve ships sailing between Anglyn and Gallia-Germania-Scandia with and additional eight on the Implarian-Eastern Sea routes. After 1958, transatlantic passenger ships became increasingly unprofitable because of the introduction of jet airliners. Cunard withdrew from its year round service in 1968 to concentrate on cruising and summer transatlantic voyages for vacationers. The Queens, the Queen Mary now owned by Conrad Hotels, were replaced by ships which were designed for the dual role.In 1998 Cunard was acquired Island Cruises.