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Men, Ships and Mails 1840–80

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Book cover Cunard and the North Atlantic 1840–1973

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Abstract

The successful operation of The British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company during the first forty years of its history was governed by a diverse range of economic, financial and political influences. These influences, in turn, helped in shaping policies relating to the building of new ships, in maintaining mail contracts and services; in entering new trades and in ordering the conduct of business within the framework of a strict code of discipline. The continuous endeavours of the managing partners to meet and overcome successive problems arising from the expansion of steamship services, created lines of policy which, in course of time, came to be regarded as traditional in the conduct of the Company’s affairs. What service was achieved in the first formative years has to be set against a background of both opposition and of the growing technical competence of other steamship companies. Even with government backing (or, perhaps, despite such backing) Cunard could not afford to be complacent. In commercial matters there is much evidence for the belief that the managers were equal in all respects to their rivals; but in technological development they were inhibited by varying degrees of conservatism and by the need to conform to official directive.

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Notes

  1. Eaves, op. cit., under 1856 and 1862; J. Napier, Life of Robert Napier (1904), pp. 192, 195.

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  3. Hon. Sir C. Wood, Bart., M.P., First Lord of the Admiralty, on the Mail Steam Ship Contract System printed for the author in 1856. The author styled himself as the writer of the Universal Steam Packet Guide of 1841.

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  4. Ibid.

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  5. MIP, Correspondence, Charles MacIver to John Burns, 12 April 1857.

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  29. J. Maginnis, The Atlantic Ferry (1900), p. 48. Washington (2000 tons) and Hermann (2200 tons) were wooden paddle steamships.

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  35. Kennedy, History of Steam Navigation (1903), p. 99. This objective seemed to be capable of realisation when in 1852 the Collins line succeeded in carrying one third more passengers than Cunard between Liverpool and New York.

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  37. Austin, op. cit., p. 94. The ships were fitted with side-lever engines, balanced poppet valves and four vertical tubular boilers.

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  41. Eaves, op. cit., under 1856; Persia was delivered in 1856 and in her first year made the crossing from New York to Liverpool on four occasions in less than 9½ days; A. J. Maginnis, op. cit., pp. 30, 32.

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  49. MIP, Correspondence, Samuel Cunard to Charles MacIver, 1 May 1847.

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  50. Ibid.

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  51. Ibid.

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  52. Ibid.

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  53. Ibid., Clause 7.

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  54. Ibid., Clauses 8 and 9.

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  55. Ibid., Clauses 2 and 3.

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  56. Ibid., Clause 2.

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  57. Ibid.

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  58. Ibid., Clause 4.

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  59. Ibid., Clause 10.

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  60. Ibid., Clause 13.

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  61. MIP, Memorandum of Agreement, 11 November 1856, ‘the Agreement existing between the two companies, dated 24 February 1853, is and shall continue suspended and be considered void from 31 March 1855 (when the last settlement was made) until the new United States Mail steamer Adriatic takes her place on the line’.

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  62. Ibid.

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  63. MIP, Correspondence, James Brown to Brown, Shipley and Co., 13 December 1853.

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  64. Ibid.

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  66. MIP, Memo on distribution of earnings 1850–55.

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  67. Ibid.

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  68. Ibid.

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  69. Ibid.

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  70. Ibid.

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  71. Ibid.

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  72. Ibid.

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  73. Ibid.

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  74. These were general instructions drawn up by Charles MacIver and distributed to captains by D. and C. MacIver.

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  75. Ibid.

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  76. Ibid.

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  77. Ibid.

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  78. MIP, 25 March 1848.

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  79. F. L. Babcock, Spanning the Atlantic, (1931), pp. 84–5, 103, 121, 125–6; Liverpool Journal of Commerce, 4 April 1932, 11 May 1932, 18 May 1934, giving accounts of Captain Judkin’s exploits during his successive commands of Columbia, Persia and Asia.

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  80. Eaves, op. cit., under 1848; MIP, Charles MacIver’s instructions to captains, 1848.

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  82. Ibid.

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  83. Ibid.

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  84. Ibid.

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  85. Ibid.

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  86. MIP, Correspondence, 23 November 1872.

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  87. Ibid.

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  89. Sir Rowland Hill and G. B. Hill, Li.fe of Rowland Hill (1880), II, pp. 183, 211; 6th Report PMG (1860); 14th Report (1868), cited Howard Robinson, op. cit., p. 257.

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  90. Ibid.

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  91. Ibid.

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  92. MIP, British and North American Mail Contracts and Relative Papers, 1869; PMG to Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, 8 February 1866.

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  93. Ibid.

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  94. Ibid., 26 April 1866.

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  95. Ibid., John Burns to Frank Ives Scudamore, GPO, 9 February 1869.

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  96. Ibid., Mail contracts North German Lloyd, 3 December 1868 and Inman, 12 December 1868.

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  97. cit., PMG to Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, 24 October 1867.

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  98. cit., John Burns to Frank Ives Scudamore, GPO, 9 February 1869.

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  100. Ibid.

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  101. Ibid., Mail contracts, op. cit., loc. cit.

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  102. cit., John Burns to the Secretary, GPO, 31 August 1868.

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  103. cit., PMG to Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, 24 October 1867.

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  104. Ibid.

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  105. Ibid., Mail contract signed 11 December 1868, Clause 2.

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  106. Ibid., Mail contracts, Inman 12 December 1868, Clause 13; Cunard December 1868, Clause 16.

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  107. Ibid., Mail contract, N.D.L. 3 December 1868, Clause 1.

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  108. cit., John Burns to F. I. Scudamore, GPO, 9 February 1869.

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  109. Ibid., ‘I may add’, said Burns, ‘that equally with ourselves Mr Inman has the strongest objection to any further curtailment of the duration of the Contract.’

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  110. Ibid.

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  111. MIP, Agreements, 4 March 1880.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Liverpool, UK

    Francis E. Hyde (Chaddock Professor of Economic History)

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© 1975 Francis E. Hyde

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Hyde, F.E. (1975). Men, Ships and Mails 1840–80. In: Cunard and the North Atlantic 1840–1973. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02390-5_2

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