The Cunard Line bills itself as having “The Most Famous Liners In The World” and it’s true that if you ask anybody in the street to name three cruise liners, most people will name The Titanic and two Cunard ships: The Queen Elizabeth the Second, familiarly known as the QE2, and the Queen Mary. And it’s also true that travelling with the Cunard Line does bring back to mind the golden age of cruising, when dinner jackets were worn every night and when Kings and world leaders rubbed shoulders with the stars of the ‘talkies’ on the dance floor.

And there’s a good reason for Cunard’s focus on the heritage of cruise travel and the grand liners who made the “Blue Ribbon” famous. In the 1830s, the British government invited people to bid for a contract to deliver mail across the Atlantic. The journey from Great Britain to North America was slow and sometimes dangerous, but Samuel Cunard felt he could do it, and he put together a consortium which won the contract.  The ships began to sail in 1839 and by the time Cunard died in 1865, not only had he been knighted and become Sir Samuel, his three original steam packets had become cruisers, carrying passengers in high style from one continent to the other.

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