Editor's Note: Legendary cruise line Cunard celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2015. To mark the occasion, they released a series of articles tracing the history of the company. 

Samuel Cunard
(Wikipedia Commons)

​Sir Samuel Cunard

From Cunard

​The oddest thing about the founding of Cunard in 1839 is that the company was ever formed by a man like Samuel Cunard at all.

To begin with, a Canadian of American parentage does not seem the classic candidate to establish a British icon. And a man so unremittingly prudent, conservative, cautious, austere – and, let’s face it, old – equally doesn’t seem the man to take such huge economic risks or to push the edges of known technology that the founding of the company entailed.

By the time he came to set up the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, as Cunard’s company was originally known, Samuel Cunard was already a prosperous businessman and significant figure in Nova Scotia. He was comfortably settled, with his children around him, a comfortable retirement in the cosy glow of local esteem seemed to lie ahead rather than the creation of a commercial revolution.

Cunard gambled everything he had to set up, 3,000 miles from home, a highly speculative and enormously risky venture uncomfortably close to the forefront of known technology. To do it, he even uprooted himself from his native Nova Scotia and took up residence in London. It all seems markedly out of character with everything he’d done before, and with everything he did afterwards when the company settled down to be a singularly cautious and conservative company in the mould of the founder.

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1947: Queen Elizabeth
Launches Caronia

From the Cunard Archives

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Michael Gallagher --
​ Cunard Historian

 Note: This interview was originally published April 24, 2014 on "Cruising Squared."

By GERRY BARKER

​Q. Please tell us a little about yourself, your background and how you came to your role as historian for Cunard.

A. Coming from just outside Liverpool (where Cunard was founded) and hearing all my Grandad's tales from his time working for Cunard I was very interested in the company from a young age. I used to pester the Public Relations Manager at the time, Eric Flounders, for information. We got to know each other and in 1994 he offered me a job as his Assistant. So, at 19 years old, I left home and went to work in London for Cunard - 20 years ago this August. Eric and I worked together until his retirement in 2011. It was at that point I was made Public Relations Manager and Historian. I am very proud of the "Historian" element as I am the first to undertake such a role in Cunard history. 

Q. Cunard has a long, rich and storied history. How did you set about learning it all?

A. I think having a real passion and interest in finding out as much as you can about something you love helps. And the fact that the Cunard story is unlike any other, with so many strands, means you are always learning more about the company.

Q. If you were making a list of top five or ten most fascinating Cunard historical happenings, what would you include?

A. For starters... 

• The fact that the company came about at all after Samuel Cunard's brainwave to establish the first scheduled service across the Atlantic and how he secured the Admiralty contract without Atlantic experience and without ships!
• The story of the little Carpathia rushing through the night to rescue all the survivors of Titanic.
• The company's war record. Cunard ships took the horses to the Charge of the Light Brigade at Crimea and Churchill saying that the contribution of Queen Mary and Elizabeth helped shorten the Second World War by a year!
• The amazing QE2 and how she defied the odds when she entered service in 1969, when many thought she would be laid up within six months, but she went on to sail more miles than any other ship in history and became one of Cunard's most-loved and longest-serving (39.5 years) ships.
• The association Her Majesty The Queen has with Cunard. She attended the 1938 launching of Queen Elizabeth and has since them launched / named four Cunard ship and visited and traveled many times. That association dates back 76 years!
• How Queen Mary was (and still is) heralded as a sign of the UK coming out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
• How despite the fact more Cunard ships have won the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing and yet not once did the company collect / display the Hales Trophy or fly the Blue Riband, insisting its ships were not in it for speed.
• How not once in 174 years has the company been responsible for a single loss of life - or loss of a mailbag!
• And that what Cunard started on the Atlantic one day Cunard will finish!

Q. What’s been your top personal highlight or accomplishment in your time with Cunard?

A. There are many, including the ship namings, Royal visits and concerts held at the Liverpool Cathedral, but the biggest highlight has to be meeting Her Majesty The Queen on QE2 during her farewell visit to the ship on June 2, 2008. 

Q. So many of the new ships seem like amusement parks at sea. In your opinion, will there always be a market for “classic cruising” in the white glove style of Cunard?

A. Absolutely. No doubt about it!

We agree 100 percent! Thanks again for sharing your insights with our readers. And special thanks to Cunard's Jackie Chase, who assisted with this article.