The Cunard Line was founded in 1840 by Samuel Cunard. Cunard was able to secure a contract to carry mail to America and also an Admiralty subsidy to finance his company. The money from the Admiralty was provided on the contractual condition that the vessels could be requisitioned during times of conflict. Four ships were initially ordered by Samuel Cunard and his business partners. The first of these was the Britannia, which sailed on her maiden voyage on 4th July 1840, the three sister ships were the Acadia, Caledonia and Colombia.

The biggest threat to the superiority of the Cunard Line came from the White Star Line, which started transatlantic sailings in 1871. The Cunard Line sought to construct vessels which matched the passenger comforts found aboard the White Star Line vessels. In 1881 Cunard launched the five-hundred feet long 7,391 g.r.t. Servia. Successive vessels built by the Cunard Line were each progressively superior in terms of size, speed and passenger accommodation. Further improvements in engine technologies allowed the Cunard Line to dispense with sail power in 1893.

In 1903 the Cunard Line came to an agreement with the British Admiralty to build two express liners. Essentially the Cunard Line would build a merchant cruiser, built to Admiralty specifications, with suitable accommodation for paying passengers. The engines would need to produce 68,000 horsepower and provide a minimum speed of 24½ knots. The specification also fixed the waterline length, breadth, position of engines, boilers, steering gear, and watertight sub-division. The resulting two vessels, built by two different shipyards, were the Lusitania and Mauretania. They entered service within a few months of each other in 1907. Both vessels were soon vying for the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing.

Again the White Star Line raised the stakes in the game of one-upmanship between the two companies with the Olympic-Titanic-Britannic trio. The response from the Cunard Line was 901 feet long 45,647 g.r.t. Aquitania, a vessel that would earn the sobriquet "The Ship Beautiful".

The outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 marked the start of the Great War and for the next four years the vessels of the Cunard Line performed a vital task carrying troops and cargo in service of the country. Notable vessels lost included the Lusitania. She was torpedoed by the German U-Boat U-20 and sank with the loss of 1,198 lives. In total Cunard lost some twenty-two vessels and following the Armistice Cunard ordered thirteen replacement vessels.

The Treaty of Versailles ceded the German vessel Imperator to the Cunard Line. Renamed Berengaria, the 52,226 g.r.t. vessel served alongside the Mauretania and Aquitania which had both survived the Great War. The three vessels, together, maintained the Cunard transatlantic express service.

In December 1930 Cunard raised the stakes yet further. The keel of yard no. 534, a new mammoth liner, was laid at the John Brown shipyard on the Clyde. However, the world economic conditions were difficult and in the depression that followed work on the new vessel was halted.

Work on the vessel, launched as the Queen Mary, only resumed following a Government-enforced merger of the Cunard Line and the White Star Line and the injection of £4½ million. A loan of £5 million was available if a sister ship was built; the Queen Elizabeth followed in 1940.

Both Queens served with distinction during the Second World War, alongside the rest of the Cunard fleet. Six vessels of the Cunard fleet were lost and a further four were removed from the fleet, converted by the Royal Navy to repair ships.

New vessels were planned, including the Caronia, which sailed on her maiden voyage in January 1949. At this time the Cunard Line took over the remaining share of the White Star Line; the company then became the Cunard Steam Ship Company. Also in 1949 the Aquitania was finally sold after having served her country in two World Wars.

Post-war rebuilding continued until the mid 1950s but by 1960 Cunard's fleet of ten vessels were facing competition from the jet airliner. Routes were cut and four vessels were sold by the mid-1960s. The situation escalated further when in 1967 the Cunard Line sold the Queen Mary to the City of Long Beach in California. The following year the Queen Elizabeth was retired, only to burn to death in Hong Kong Harbour in 1972.

The vessel built to replace them was the Queen Elizabeth 2, commissioned in 1964 and launched in 1967. She sailed on her maiden voyage in May 1969. In 1969 the Cunard fleet comprised just three vessels, the Queen Elizabeth 2, the Carmania, and the Franconia. During this time the company Trafalgar House became the major shareholder of the company and would later come to own the company in its entirety.

During the stewardship of Trafalgar House a number of smaller ships were added to the fleet, but by the late 1990s the American company Carnival purchased the company. Under their ownership the Cunard Line fleet has a new flagship, Queen Mary II, running alongside the QE2. A new vessel, the Queen Victoria, is also under construction. The future of the world's most famous shipping line remains secure.

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