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In 1814 the Marjory, the first steamer to run regularly on the River Thames, began her career; but it was not until 1819 that the Savannah, a wooden sailing ship of American construction, but fitted with engines and a set of paddles amidships, crossed the Atlantic, arriving at Liverpool after 29½ days. In the following year the Condé de Palmella was the first engined ship to sail across the Atlantic from east to west, namely from Liverpool to the Brazils.

“Aquitania” at Southampton with Canadian troops

These were but tentative experiments, however, and the Transatlantic Steamship Service, as we see it to-day, did not really begin till the year 1838, when the steamers Sirius and Great Western sailed within a few days of each other from London and Bristol respectively. Both ships crossed without mishap, the Sirius in 17 days, and the Great Western in 15. In the same year, the Royal William and the Liverpool crossed from Liverpool to New York in 19 days and 16½ days respectively.

It was now clear that a new era in transatlantic navigation had dawned, and the Admiralty, who were then responsible for the arrangement of overseas postal contracts, and had hitherto been satisfied to entrust the carrying of mails to sailing vessels, invited tenders for the future conveyance of letters to America by steam vessels. One of their advertisements, as it happened, came into the hands of Mr. Samuel Cunard; he was the son of an American citizen of Philadelphia, who had settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in which city he had been born in 1787. For some time the idea of developing a regular service of steamers between America and England had been simmering in Mr. Cunard’s brain. He was already in his 50th year, a successful merchant and ship owner; and he now resolved to visit England with the intention, if possible, of raising sufficient capital to put his ideas into practice. Armed with an introduction to Mr. Robert Napier, a well-known Clyde shipbuilder and engineer, he went to Glasgow, after having received but little sympathy in London. Through Mr. Napier he became acquainted with Mr. George Burns, a fellow Scotsman of great ability and long practical experience as a ship-owner, and through him with Mr. David McIver, also a Scotsman of sagacity and enterprise, then living at Liverpool. Between the three of them the necessary capital was obtained, and Mr. Cunard was able to submit to the Admiralty a tender for the conveyance of mails once a fortnight between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston, U.S.A. His tender was considered so much better than that offered by the owners of the Great Western that it was accepted, and a contract for seven years was concluded between the Government and the newly formed British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, as it was then called.