THE CUNARD LINE AND ITS FOUNDERS.
This well-known line takes its name from Samuel Cunard (afterwards
Sir Samuel), a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, who had for some time
been conducting the mail service between Halifax, Boston, Newfoundland
and Bermuda, and who had long been revolving in his mind the idea of
establishing a regular line of ocean mail steamers, but could not find
the necessary financial backing in his native country. Proceeding
to Britain, Mr. Cunard fortunately fell in with Robert Napier, the
famous Clyde ship-builder and engineer, who entered heartily into his
proposals and introduced him to George Burns (afterwards Sir George),
one of the foremost men in shipping circles at that time, and a man of
large means. Through him Mr. Cunard was introduced to David MacIver,
of Liverpool, who was of a kindred spirit. The result before long was
a partnership of these three with a subscribed capital of £270,000
sterling, and the obtaining of a contract with the British Government
for seven years to institute and maintain a steam service from
Liverpool to Halifax and Boston, twice a month during eight months of
the year and once a month in winter, for an annual subsidy of £60,000.
Subsequent stipulations made by the Admiralty were accompanied by an
increase of the subsidy to £80,000. At the end of seven years the
contract was renewed, but for a weekly service in summer, and twice a
month in winter. Saturday then became the regular day of sailing from
Liverpool, and New York was adopted as one of the American termini.
In 1848, when it was found that a weekly service was required, the
subsidy was increased to £156,000 per annum. In 1860, to facilitate
the despatch of the mails, the boats began to call at Queenstown both
going out and returning home, as they still continue to do. In January,
1868, a new mail contract came into operation, under which the Cunard
Line received £70,000 a year for a direct weekly service to New York.
In the following year Halifax was left out of the programme, although a
separate branch line continued to run to Boston as it still does.
[Illustration: “BRITANNIA,” FIRST OF THE CUNARD LINE, 1840.]
The original name of the company was “The British and North
American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company,” but it soon took the
less cumbrous title of “The Cunard Steamship Company, Limited.” The
Cunard Line commenced its service from Liverpool to North America
on the anniversary of American Independence, the 4th of July, 1840,
superseding as mail-carriers the ten-gun sailing brigs of earlier
days.[13]
[Illustration: THE “NIAGARA,” AS A TRANSPORT IN 1855.]
The first fleet consisted of four side-wheel steamers, each 207
feet long, 34⅓ feet beam and 22½ feet deep. Their wooden hulls were
constructed by four different builders on the Clyde—the _Acadia_ by
John Wood, the _Britannia_ by Robert Duncan & Co.; the _Caledonia_
by Charles Wood, and the _Columbia_ by Robert Steele. All four were
built after the same model, closely resembling that of the _Great
Western_. They were all supplied with engines of the side-lever type,
by Robert Napier & Sons, 403 horse-power, nominal, with cylinders of
72½ inches diameter and 82 inches stroke. They burned about forty-four
tons of coal per day, and carried a steam pressure of 9 pounds to the
square inch. The _Britannia_, commanded by Captain Woodruff, R.N.,
sailed on her first westward voyage on July 4th, and after calling
at Halifax, reached Boston on the 19th, having made the passage in
14 days, 8 hours, including detention at Halifax. So great was the
enthusiasm in Boston, it is said that Mr. Cunard, who had come out in
the _Britannia_, received eighteen hundred invitations to dinner during
the first twenty-four hours of his stay in the city! From that time
until now the service has been maintained with marvellous regularity,
and the line has an unrivalled reputation for safety. During all
these intervening years the ships of the Cunard Line have crossed and
recrossed the stormy Atlantic without the loss of a single life. In the
early days of the service, the _Unicorn_, formerly of the Glasgow and
Liverpool Line, plied between Quebec and Pictou, N.S., in connection
with the Atlantic steamers, and is said to have been the first
transatlantic steamer to reach Boston, on June 2nd, 1840. The _Unicorn_
was commanded by Captain Walter Douglas—a great favourite with his
passengers—and the boat was a very fine one indeed.
The second contract, calling for weekly sailings, necessitated a larger
fleet of steamers. To meet this demand four new ships were built,
and took their places on the line in 1848, namely, the _America_,
_Niagara_, _Canada_ and _Europa_. Each of these was 251 feet long,
of 1,800 tons burthen and 750 horse-power. They had an average speed
of 10½ knots an hour. And so, from time to time, as the exigencies
of trade and the need for enlarged passenger accommodation demanded,
fresh additions were made to the fleet, each succeeding ship surpassing
its predecessors in size, equipment and speed. The _Persia_, built in
1856, was the first of the iron boats: the _Scotia_, in 1862, was the
last of the paddle-wheel steamers. They were both very fine ships of
3,300 and 3,871 tons, respectively, accounted the best specimens of
marine architecture then afloat. The _China_, launched in 1862, was the
first Cunard single-screw steamer. She was followed, in 1867, by the
_Russia_, the queen of ocean steamers in her day. Passing a number of
intervening ships, we come, in 1881, to the _Servia_, the first of the
line built of steel—a magnificent vessel, 515 feet long, 7,392 tons,
9,900 horse-power, and attaining a speed of 16.7 knots.
In the meantime important changes had been transpiring in the
constitution of the Cunard Company and its environment. The original
shareholders had been by degrees bought out by the founders, so
that the whole concern was vested in the three families of Cunard,
Burns, and MacIver. Sir Samuel attended to the business in London,
Mr. Burns in Glasgow, and Mr. MacIver in Liverpool, and never was
any business better managed than by these men and their successors.
In 1878 it was deemed expedient to consolidate the interests of the
partners by the formation of a joint stock company with a capital of
£2,000,000 sterling. The three families interested in the concern took
up £1,200,000 in paid-up shares. No shares, however, were offered to
the public until 1880, when a prospectus was issued, setting forth
the necessity for additional steamships of the most improved type,
involving a large outlay of money. The shares were readily bought up
and measures were taken to increase the efficiency of the fleet, which
had become at length imperative owing to the keen competition of rival
lines. This was inevitable.
[Illustration: THE “SCOTIA,” LAST OF CUNARD PADDLE-STEAMSHIPS, 1862.]
The manifest success of the Cunard Company could not long continue
without exciting competition, and this followed in due course from
a variety of quarters; nor was it to be expected that they should
easily hold the supremacy of the sea against all new-comers. They had,
in fact, to contend vigorously for their laurels, and at successive
intervals had to retire into the second rank, but their determination
to regain and hold, at whatever cost, the championship has been well
illustrated in the newer ships of the line. The _Umbria_ and _Etruria_,
steel ships launched in 1884, having cost nearly two millions of
dollars each, were a decided advance upon any steamers then afloat.
They are 500 feet long, 57 feet 3 inches wide, and 40 feet in depth;
they are of 8,127 tons, 14,500 horse-power and are equal to a speed of
19½ knots an hour. They have ample accommodation for 550 first-class
passengers and 800 steerage. Each of them has made the run from
Queenstown to New York (2,782 knots) in less than six days. In nine
consecutive voyages the _Etruria_ (in 1885) maintained an average
speed of 18 knots. Her fastest voyage, however, from Queenstown to New
York, was made in August, 1897, when she was thirteen years old—namely,
5 days, 21 hours and 10 minutes actual time, the average speed during
the voyage being about 20 knots.
[Illustration: THE “CAMPANIA,” AT LIVERPOOL LANDING-STAGE.]
It helps one to understand the enormous cost of such vessels when it
is stated that the single screw-propeller weighs about thirty-nine
tons and costs $25,000! Splendid as was the record of these crack
Cunarders, they were surpassed by ships of the White Star and Inman
Lines. Something had to be done. An order was given to the Fairfield
Ship-building and Engineering Company on the Clyde to build two steel
twin-screw express steamships that should surpass all previous efforts.
The result was the _Campania_ and _Lucania_, launched at Govan in
September, 1892, and February, 1893, respectively. These sister ships
are splendid specimens of marine architecture. They are each 620 feet
long, 65¼ feet beam, and 43 feet in depth. Their gross tonnage is
12,950 tons; their twin screws are driven by triple expansion engines
of 30,000 indicated horse-power. Each engine has five cylinders and
three cranks. The low-pressure cylinders have the enormous diameter
of 8 feet 2 inches; the two high-pressure cylinders are 37 inches in
diameter, and the intermediate are 79 inches, with a stroke of 5 feet 9
inches. They are arranged tandem fashion, with a high-pressure cylinder
over a low-pressure cylinder, one at each end, and the intermediate in
the centre. At eighty revolutions (their normal speed) this enormous
weight is moved about 2,000 feet per minute. The crank shaft is
twenty-six inches in diameter, and each of the three interchangeable
parts weighs twenty-seven tons. The propeller shaft is twenty-four
inches in diameter, fitted in lengths of twenty-four feet, each length
having two bearings. The bossing out of the stern, as in the _Teutonic_
and _Majestic_, permits the screws to work without any exterior
overhanging bracket, as in other screw steamers. The central boss
of the propeller is made of steel; the three blades, weighing eight
tons each, are of manganese bronze. A new feature in the machinery is
what is called an “emergency governor,” which, in case of the shaft
breaking, or the screw racing from any other cause beyond a certain
speed, is designed to act automatically on the reversing gear and stop
the engines. These gigantic engines are started and reversed by steam.
Their height from the base to the top of the cylinders is no less than
forty-seven feet. There are twelve large boilers, with four furnaces at
each end, and made to stand a pressure of 165 lbs. to the square inch.
The two funnels are each twenty feet in diameter, and rise to a height
of 130 feet above the floor of the ship. The rudder is one large plate
of steel, 22 x 11½ feet in area and 1½ inches thick. With the steering
gear it weighs forty-five tons! On her maiden voyage from New York to
Liverpool the _Campania_ eclipsed all previous records, making the run
to Queenstown, by the long route (2,896 knots), in 5 days, 17 hours,
27 minutes. Her fastest eastern passage has been 5 days, 9 hours, 18
minutes, and westward, 5 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes. She has run 548
knots in twenty-four hours, and maintained an average speed of 21.82
knots an hour throughout an entire voyage.
Wonderful as the performances of the _Campania_ have been, they are
surpassed by her sister ship. The _Lucania_ made the western voyage,
from Queenstown to New York, arriving October 27th, 1894, in 5 days, 7
hours, 23 minutes, the fastest voyage between these points yet made.
Her daily runs on that occasion were, 529, 534, 533, 549, 544, 90—total
knots, 2,779. Her fastest eastward voyage (up to July, 1897) has been 5
days, 8 hours, 38 minutes; her best average speed throughout a voyage
was 22.1 knots an hour, and her highest day’s running is 560 knots. The
arrival and departure of these steamers at the Liverpool landing-stage
has come to be anticipated with almost as much exactitude as that of
our best regulated railways. The mails which they carry from New York
on Saturday morning are usually delivered in Liverpool on the following
Friday afternoon, and letters from London are delivered in Montreal in
seven days. By arrangement with the Admiralty, and in consideration
of an annual subvention of £19,000, the _Lucania_ and _Campania_ are
held at the disposal of the Government whenever their services may be
required as armed cruisers. Other ships of this line are also at the
disposal of the Admiralty without any specified subsidy.
Changes and improvements of very great importance to the travelling
community have taken place within the last few years, not only in
regard to the ocean steamships, but also in regard to facilities for
embarkation and landing, and this very largely owing to the lively
competition of Southampton and the inducements which it has to offer as
a shipping port. The dredging of the bar at the mouth of the Mersey,
so as to admit of sea-going vessels entering the port at any state of
the tide, is not the least important of the changes referred to. Until
quite recently ocean steamers had frequently to come to anchor six or
eight miles from the mouth of the river, and wait outside for hours
till the tide would rise. That obstruction has been removed, and now
the largest steamers can cross the bar at almost any state of the tide.
But that is not all. The tedious and discomfortable method of being
conveyed from ship to shore in a “tender” has also been done away with.
The wonder is that it was submitted to so long. The ocean steamship on
her arrival at Liverpool is now brought alongside the landing-stage,
and instead of being obliged to drive in a cab or omnibus across the
city a mile or more to the railway station for London or elsewhere,
the railway and the station have come down to the water’s edge, and
you pass at once from the ship to the railway train, and immediately
proceed on your journey. Passengers for New York may leave Euston
Station, London, at noon by a special train of the London and North
Western Railway, and find themselves on the landing-stage at Liverpool
at 4.15 p.m., the run of over two hundred miles being made, perhaps,
without a stoppage—looking for their luggage, as Englishmen are
accustomed to do, and astonished to learn that, by some occult system
of handling, and, most strange of all, without a “tip,” it is already
on board the ship!
Each of these ships is designed to carry six hundred first-class and
over one thousand second and third-class passengers. The accommodation
provided for them are of the most elaborate description. No expense
has been spared in the internal fittings of the ships. Everything that
science and skill and refined taste could suggest has been brought into
requisition. A more facile pen than ours describes the public rooms, as
we call them, as follows, in terms by no means too appreciative: “The
dining saloon is a vast, lofty apartment near the middle of the ship,
one hundred feet long, sixty-two feet broad, and ten feet high, capable
of seating at dinner 430 passengers in their revolving armchairs. The
decorations are highly artistic. The ceiling is panelled in white and
gold, the sides in Spanish mahogany, and the upholstering is in a dark,
rich red, figured frieze velvet, with curtains to match. There are
nooks and corners where small parties may dine in complete seclusion.
The forty side-lights are of unusual size. Fresh air is admitted by
patent ventilators in the roughest weather. For lighting, as well as
ventilation, there is an opening in the ceiling in the centre of the
room, 24 x 16 feet, surmounted by a dome of stained glass reaching a
height of thirty-three feet above the floor. The drawing-room is a
splendid apartment, 60 x 30 feet. The walls are ornamented with satin
wood, richly carved. The furniture is upholstered in rich velvets and
brocades. In the cosy fireplace there is a brass grate and a hearth
laid with Persian tiles. The ceiling is in pine, decorated in light
tones, old ivory prevailing, with not too much gilding. A Grand piano
and an American organ are also provided. The library, 29 x 24 feet, is
very ornate. It is suitably furnished with writing tables and writing
materials, and a handsome book-case filled with a choice selection of
books. The smoking-room, 40 x 32 feet, is decorated in the Scottish
baronial style. The whole tone of the room is suggestive of _otium cum
dignitate_. The ordinary staterooms are lofty and well ventilated, with
cunning devices for the saving of room and making things look pleasant
and comfortable. Then there are suites of rooms elaborately furnished
with tables and bedsteads and bath-rooms, and every conceivable luxury
of that sort, for those who are able and willing to pay for them.”
The accommodation for second-class passengers is in keeping with
that for the first. These, too, have their elegant dining-room, and
drawing-room, and smoking-room. Even the third-class can rejoice with
their neighbours in “the comforts of smoke.”
One of these ships, when carrying her full complement of passengers,
will start on her voyage provisioned somewhat on this scale: 20,000
lbs. of fresh beef, 1,000 lbs. of corned beef, 10,000 lbs. of mutton,
1,400 lbs. of lamb, 500 lbs. of veal, 500 lbs. of pork, 3,500 lbs.
of fresh fish, 1,000 fowls—400 chickens, 250 ducks and geese, 100
turkeys, 30 tons of potatoes, 30 hampers of vegetables, 18,000 eggs,
6,000 lbs. of ham, 3,000 lbs. of butter, etc., etc.; 13,650 bottles of
ale and porter, 6,650 bottles of mineral waters, 1,600 bottles of wines
and spirits, are frequently consumed on a single voyage.
The various vessels of the Cunard fleet between them carry on an
average 110,000 passengers per annum, besides 600,000 tons of
merchandise and 50,000 carcases of dead meat in refrigerators, over a
distance of one million miles annually. The _Campania_ and _Lucania_,
owing to the large space occupied by their machinery, only carry about
1,600 tons of freight each.
The order and discipline on board a Cunard liner is that of a
man-of-war. The vessels have been built under a special survey, and
combine in their construction the best known appliances, in cases of
fire, collision, or any other marine contingency, for the safety of the
ship and its living freight. The watertight bulkheads are sixteen in
number, and will enable the ship to float with any two or even three
of the compartments filled with water. The life-boat equipment and
service is ample and thoroughly organized. In short, everything is made
subservient to safety.
Some idea of the cost of running vessels of this size and speed may be
formed when it is stated that the daily average consumption of coal
is nearly four hundred tons, but when urged to utmost speed it would
be nearer five hundred tons. The crew, all told, number about 424, of
whom 195 are required to attend to the engines and boilers alone. In
the sailing department, from the captain to the lamplighter, about
sixty-five; in the steward’s department, including 8 stewardesses,
about 120, and in the cook’s department, about 45. These 424 persons
must be paid and fed at a cost of from $12,000 to $15,000 a month.
Each of the ships must have cost over $3,000,000, the interest upon
which, at four per cent., is $120,000 per annum; add the enormous cost
of provisioning the ship for perhaps six hundred cabin passengers,
who, for the most part, expect to fare more sumptuously every day
they are on board than they do at home; and one thousand intermediate
and steerage passengers, who must live like fighting-cocks; then
estimate, if you can, the cost of insurances, agencies, advertising,
port charges, pilotage; write off a reasonable percentage for wear and
tear; these put together represent an amount so formidable as to leave
a very slender margin for profits. At the last annual meeting of the
shareholders a dividend of 2½ per cent. for the year 1897 was declared,
which was considered a good showing.
Since 1840 the Cunard Company have employed no less than fifty-six
first-class passenger steamships in the Atlantic service alone. The
entire fleet at present consists of thirty-three ships, with a total
tonnage of 124,124, and 153,732 horse-power, and maintains regular
communication from Liverpool to New York, Boston, France and almost
every country in the Mediterranean. Excepting some of the ships
acquired by purchase, all the others were built to order on the Clyde.
In all these fifty-eight years the Cunard Company has only lost three
ships. Through the mistake of her pilot, the _Columbia_, one of the
first Atlantic fleet, ran ashore during a fog near Cape Sable, N.S.,
in July, 1843, and became a total wreck, but her mails and passengers
were safely landed. In 1872 the _Tripoli_, of the Mediterranean Line,
was wrecked on the Tuskar Rocks in St. George’s Channel, half-way
between Cork and Dublin, but no lives were lost. In 1886 the company
met with its severest loss by the sinking of the magnificent steamship
_Oregon_, recently purchased from the Guion Company. Early in the
morning of the 4th of March she was run into by an unknown sailing
vessel when about fifty miles from New York, and such were the injuries
she sustained she gradually filled with water and went to the bottom,
not, however, before the whole ship’s company, numbering 995 souls
were safely transferred to the _Fulda_ of the North German Lloyd Line,
which fortunately came up to the scene of the disaster in the nick of
time. Her bulkheads should have saved her from going under, and would
have done so, but for some unexplained obstruction to the closing of a
watertight door. As it was, the bulkheads kept her afloat long enough
to save the lives of all on board.
Among the famous captains in the forties were C. H. E. Judkins, James
Stone, William Harrison, Ed. G. Lott, Theodore Cook, Captain Moodie,
and James (afterwards Sir James) Anderson who commanded the _Great
Eastern_ on some of her cable-laying expeditions. Captain Harrison was
the first commander of the _Great Eastern_, and was drowned in the
Solent when going ashore from his ship in a dingy. Captain Judkins was
born at Chester in 1811; he entered the Cunard service in 1840 as chief
officer of the SS. _Acadia_: was appointed commander of the _Britannia_
that same year, and was successively master of the _Hibernia_,
_Canada_, _Persia_ and _Scotia_. He lived to be Commodore of the fleet
and retired from the sea in 1871, after having made more than five
hundred voyages across the Atlantic without any serious accident, and
being able to say that the Cunard Company at that date had lost neither
a life nor a letter. Captain Judkins died in 1876. He was a typical
British sailor. He could be exceedingly gracious, and when the mood
struck him he could be gruff. I remember making a voyage with him on
the _Hibernia_ in 1843, on which occasion he ran across from Halifax
to Liverpool under a cloud of canvas, with studding sails set low and
aloft most of the time, a dense fog all the way, but he picked up his
pilot off Cape Clear, just where he expected to find him, and went
snoring up the Channel, growling like a bear at the captain of a Dublin
steamer who would not get out of his way, and whom in his wrath he
threatened to send to “Davie Jones’ locker.” The voyage was made in
nine days and a half, I think, which was accounted a marvellous run in
those days. Captain Lott was one of the most genial of men and very
popular. He, too, was banqueted on the completion of his five hundredth
trip. It has been said of him that his good nature was occasionally
ruffled when liberties, unconsciously or otherwise, were taken with his
name; as, for example, when a worthy minister officiating on board took
for his text, “Remember Lot’s wife”; and again, when a rough sailor
complained in his hearing that his pork was “as salt as Lot’s wife.”
Sailors, as a rule, are not given to talk shop, and are quick to resent
idle talk in others. The story is told of Captain Theodore Cook that
one day when taking his noon observation, a cloud interrupted his
vision. Just then a passenger coming along said with a patronizing air,
“Captain Cook, I’m afraid that cloud prevented you from making your
observation.” “Yes, sir,” replied the potentate of the sea, “but it did
not prevent you making yours.”[14]
At the time of the “_Trent_ Difficulty,” as it was called, in 1861,
the _Australasian_ and the _Persia_ of the Cunard Line were chartered
by the British Government to bring out troops to Canada. On the 4th
of December orders were received to prepare the _Australasian_ with
all speed for this service; her fittings were completed on the 10th,
she took in her coal on the 11th, and sailed on the 13th with the 60th
Rifles. On the 5th of the same month similar orders were received for
the _Persia_, which sailed on the 16th with 1,180 troops, consisting
of 1st Battalion of the 16th Regiment and a detachment of sappers.
Captain Cook, of the _Australasian_, having encountered much ice in the
entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, had to turn back, and took his
ship to Halifax and thence to St. John, New Brunswick, where he landed
his contingent. Judkins, on the other hand, brought the _Persia_ right
up to Bic and landed his men, but, the ice threatening to keep him
there, he quickly bolted for the open sea, leaving his boats behind him!
Of the more recent commanders, Captain W. H. P. Haines, late of the
_Campania_ and Commodore of the Cunard fleet, may be instanced as a
good specimen. A born sailor he may be called, inasmuch as he is a
native of Plymouth, whose father and grandfather before him followed
the sea and who himself has been sailing for nearly fifty years and
counts 592 voyages across the Atlantic. Captain Haines has always been
as noted for caution as for skill. It is said of him that “whatever
temptation there might be to make a fast passage, he would never
neglect to take soundings, nor rely on any patent apparatus, without
repeatedly fortifying its results by stopping his ship to get up and
down casts with the ordinary lead.”
To guard against the risks of collision with other vessels, the Cunard
steamers follow prescribed routes laid out for them, by which the
ships, both outward and homeward bound, are kept at a respectable
distance. In estimating the runs of the Atlantic liners from Liverpool
to New York and return, Daunt’s Rock, off Queenstown, and the Sandy
Hook lightship, twenty-six knots from New York, are regarded as the
points of departure and arrival; but as Daunt’s Rock is about 244 knots
from Liverpool, it follows that, to complete the voyage, a full half
day’s run must be added to the record as usually announced. It is also
to be remembered that the day at sea is longer or shorter according to
the speed of the ship. On a twenty-knot vessel going east the average
length of day is about 23 hours and 10 minutes; going westward it is
about 24 hours and 50 minutes. The difference of time between Greenwich
and New York is about five hours.
[Illustration: CUNARD TRACK CHART.]
The “express steamers,” as the fast ships are now called, of the Cunard
Line at present are the _Campania_, _Lucania_, _Etruria_ and _Umbria_.
These four constitute the weekly mail service, sailing every Saturday
from Liverpool and New York. The _Aurania_, _Servia_ and other vessels
perform a fortnightly service from the same ports, sailing on Tuesdays.
Five steamers are employed in maintaining a weekly service between
Liverpool and Boston, and about a dozen more are required for the
service between Liverpool, France and the Mediterranean.
The story of the Cunard Company would be incomplete without at least
a brief reference to its three founders, Messrs. Cunard, Burns and
MacIver, and Mr. Napier, the engineer, who was so closely identified
with them.
[Illustration: SIR SAMUEL CUNARD. SIR GEORGE BURNS. DAVID MACIVER.
THE FOUNDERS OF THE CUNARD LINE.]
The late Sir Samuel Cunard was a son of Abraham Cunard, a merchant in
Philadelphia, and a Quaker, whose ancestors had come to America from
Wales in the seventeenth century, and who removed to Halifax, Nova
Scotia. There Sir Samuel was born, November 21st, 1787. His parents
were not in affluent circumstances; indeed he has been heard to tell
that, when a boy, he often went about the streets with a basket on
his arm selling herbs that were grown in his mother’s garden, to earn
“an honest penny.” In course of time, however, he became a prosperous
merchant and the owner of whaling-ships that sailed from Halifax to the
Pacific Ocean. How he came to identify himself with the Atlantic mail
service has already been mentioned, and little else remains to be said
about him. He was small of stature, but a man of rare intelligence;
a keen observer of men and things, and who had the faculty, largely
developed, of influencing other men. In private life he was one of the
most gentle and lovable of men. He married, in 1815, a daughter of Mr.
W. Duffus, of Halifax, by whom he had nine children. On March 9th,
1859, Her Majesty, on the recommendation of Lord Palmerston, made him
a Baronet, in recognition of his services to the realm and to other
countries in promoting the means of inter-communication. He was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1846. He died in London,
April 28th, 1865, leaving, it is said, a fortune of £350,000. His title
and his interest in the business were inherited by his eldest son, Sir
Edward Cunard, at whose decease, in 1869, the reins of administration
fell into the hands of his brother William, who married a daughter
of the late celebrated Judge Haliburton, of Nova Scotia, and who now
represents the company in London.
Sir George Burns was, in many respects, a remarkable man. He was born
in the Holy Land, a name popularly given to a “land” of houses in
Glasgow, in which five ministers resided, one of them being his father,
the Rev. John Burns, D.D., of the old Barony parish, who ministered
in that place for seventy-two years, and who died at the patriarchal
age of ninety-six. George was born in 1795. He commenced business in
Glasgow with his brother James, under the firm of G. & J. Burns & Co.,
a name that has ever since been famous in shipping circles. They began
steam navigation to Liverpool and Belfast over seventy years since,
and gradually built up a large and lucrative business. Many years ago
Mr. Burns retired and took up his residence at Wemyss Bay, on the
estuary of the Clyde, where he spent the evening of his days, and was
frequently seen sitting among his rhododendrons and laurels, watching
his steamers as they coursed up and down the Firth. He was created a
Baronet in his old age, May 24th, 1889. He died on the 2nd of June in
the following year, being succeeded by his son, Sir John Burns, of
Castle Wemyss, who is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Cunard
Steamship Company. Sir John’s elevation to the peerage, at the time
of Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee, when he assumed the name of Lord
Inverclyde, was regarded as a well-merited honour by his countrymen,
and in shipping circles generally.
Although he was a son of the “Father of the Church of Scotland,” Sir
George early in life contracted a liking for the liturgical service
of the Church of England, and eventually became an Episcopalian. “Sir
George Burns, Bart.: His Times and Friends, by Edwin Hodder; Hodder and
Stoughton, London,” is the title of an admirable biography in which is
to be found a fine portraiture of a man “diligent in business, fervent
in spirit, serving the Lord.” As a business man he is described as
“honourable in the minutest particulars, accurate in all his dealings,
faithful to every trust, tenacious of every promise, disdaining to take
the least advantage of the weakness or incapacity of any man.” There
is also much information in this volume, bearing on the history of the
Cunard Line, that is valuable and interesting, and of which we have
freely availed ourselves in compiling these pages.
David MacIver, a Scotchman, as his name implies, had lived a good many
years in Liverpool before his connection with the Cunard Company, and
had acquired a great deal of valuable experience in shipping affairs.
His first intercourse with Burns was somewhat singular in the light of
their future alliance. It was as the agent of an opposition line of
steamers, plying between Liverpool and Glasgow, that their friendship
began. A Manchester firm had started an opposition line, but they were
no match for G. and J. Burns, who eventually bought them out, and
secured a monopoly of the trade, except the small steamer _Enterprise_,
for which David MacIver was agent, and which the same firm cleverly
bought also. Not to be outdone, MacIver succeeded in organizing the
“New City of Glasgow Steam-Packet Company,” of which he became the
Liverpool agent. Determined, if possible, to drive his rivals from the
seas, it is said that he used to sail in the vessels himself, urging
his officers to increased speed. But it was of no use; the new company
were soon glad to accept offers for amalgamation, and from that time
MacIver and Burns became fast friends. Mr. MacIver had first-rate
executive ability, and as most of the working details devolved upon
him, he had a controlling influence in the Cunard Line while he lived.
The well-known firm of D. & C. MacIver were the managers of the line at
Liverpool, from its formation until the year 1883, when they resigned,
a Board of Directors assuming the entire control of affairs. David
MacIver, however, had died in 1845, when the Liverpool agency fell into
the hands of his brother and partner, Charles, whose able supervision
continued for thirty-five years.
Robert Napier was born at Dumbarton in 1791. After serving his
apprenticeship as millwright and smith, he went to Edinburgh, where
he wrought at his trade for some time, earning ten shillings a week.
Inspired by the old Scotch motto, “He that tholes overcomes,” he
stuck to it. Later, he entered the service of Robert Stephenson, the
celebrated engineer, and made his mark as a mechanical genius. At
twenty-four years of age he commenced business on his own account,
in Glasgow, where he gradually built up the large engineering and
ship-building business subsequently carried on under the name of Robert
Napier & Sons. The “Lancefield Works” and his Govan shipyards attained
world-wide celebrity. He constructed the machinery for the SS. _British
Queen_, and for the first four Cunard steamers, and for many others in
later years. He also received large orders for warships and transports
from the British Admiralty and from foreign governments. He built
several large ironclads for the Royal Navy. He made the engines for
the great three-decker, _Duke of Wellington_—all but the last of the
“wooden walls.” He built and engined the famous Cunarders _Persia_ and
_Scotia_.
[Illustration: ROBERT NAPIER AND MRS. NAPIER.]
Mr. Napier erected a princely mansion on the Gareloch, named Shandon
House, where his declining years were spent in retirement, but in the
exercise of unbounded hospitality, as the writer can testify from his
personal experience. Shandon House came to be like a museum containing
a rare collection of pictures and antiquities from almost all parts
of the world. Among his curios none was more highly prized than his
mother’s spinning-wheel, and the painting that he valued the most was
the portrait of his wife plying the same old-fashioned spinning-wheel,
with which she had been familiar from girlhood. Does it not seem like
the “irony of fate,” and a melancholy commentary on the transitory
nature of everything mundane, that this marvellous accumulation of
articles of _virtu_ was, shortly after Mr. Napier’s death, sold by
public auction to the highest bidder, and that his palatial residence
passed into the hands of a hydropathic company?
Having said so much about the Cunard Line, there is no need to dwell at
similar length upon any of the other transatlantic lines of steamers.
The history of the Cunard Line is the history of Atlantic steam
navigation. It commenced at a time when steam power had only been used
as an auxiliary to sails, but when that order of affairs was soon to
be reversed. The intervening years have witnessed the transition from
wooden ships to iron, and from iron to steel; from the paddle-wheel
to the single screw-propeller, and then to the twin-screw; from the
simple side-lever engines to the compound, and from the compound to
the triple and quadruple expansion engines of the present time. These
successive changes, common to all the other important lines of ocean
steamers, have resulted in greatly increased speed with economy of
fuel. But no one at all conversant with the subject supposes that the
limit in either of these directions has been reached. Her Majesty’s
torpedo boats can easily reel off their thirty knots an hour; why not
an express steamer?
The competition for the supremacy of the sea in these latitudes has
been both keen and costly, but greatly to the benefit of the travelling
community; and it has all along been conducted in an excellent spirit.
Circumstances have frequently arisen when it might have been easy to
take advantage of a rival, but when it resulted in acts of chivalry.
Sir John Burns has mentioned one instance out of many such that have
transpired: On a certain occasion the Cunard steamer _Alps_ was seized
in New York for an alleged infraction of the Customs laws on the part
of some of the crew, and before she could be released, security had
to be given to the extent of £30,000 sterling; when, “who should come
forward and stand security for the Cunard Company but the great firm
of Brown, Shipley & Co., the agents of the Collins Line!” Another case
in point is connected with the foundering of the Cunard SS. _Oregon_.
When the whole of the passengers and crew, to the number of nearly
a thousand, had been taken off the sinking ship, and landed in New
York by the North German Lloyd SS. _Fulda_, the question having been
asked what compensation was demanded, the courteous reply was speedily
received: “Highly gratified at having been instrumental in saving so
many lives. No claim!”[15]
The Fairfield Ship-building and Engineering Company is one of the
most famous of the many eminent ship-building firms in Britain.
The yards at Govan on the Clyde occupy an area of sixty acres of
ground, and employ from 6,000 to 7,000 men. The shops are fitted with
machinery of the most approved description, in which every requisite
of marine architecture has a place, where massive plates of steel
and iron are clipped, shaped and pierced with rivet holes as if they
were only sheets of wax or paper. Here have been built many of the
record-breaking ocean greyhounds, as well as armour-plated cruisers
for the Royal Navy. The _Arizona_, the _Alaska_ and the _Oregon_ were
built here, and were accounted marvels in their day. The _Umbria_ and
_Etruria_, the _Campania_ and the _Lucania_ have secured for Fairfield
a world-wide reputation. Ships for Sir Donald Currie’s Castle Line, for
the Orient and the Hamburg-American lines, not to speak of the Isle
of Man steamers, the swiftest coasting steamers of the day, have been
built at Govan. Under the name of Randolph, Elder & Company the firm
was founded, or rather reconstructed, by the late Mr. John Elder, a man
of consummate ability in his profession, who died in 1869 at the early
age of forty-five years.
The compound engine, by which steam is made to do double duty, is one
of the most important of recent improvements in marine engineering,
being the means of largely increasing the motive power and decreasing
the consumption of fuel. The successful application of this system
to ocean steam navigation is usually attributed to Mr. John Elder,
of the above-named firm, who introduced it in some of the steamers
of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company as early as 1856.[16] But it
did not come into general use until some years later. The Admiralty,
recognizing the importance claimed for the discovery, resolved to
test its value, in 1863, by sending three ships of similar size on
a voyage from Plymouth to Madeira, two of them being fitted with
the ordinary engines of the day, and the third, the _Constance_,
with Elder’s compound engine. The result placed the superiority of
the compound engine beyond question, and led up to the triple and
quadruple expansion engine which has revolutionized the ship-building
and shipping interests; hence the enormous cargoes carried by ships of
the _Pennsylvania_ type, with a moderate consumption of fuel and the
lowering of ocean freight rates.
Before taking leave of the Cunard Line, it may not be out of place to
mention that an employee of that line has the distinction of having
crossed the Atlantic more frequently than any other man. One is apt
to think of his own voyages—thirty-five or forty—as a tolerably fair
showing, but that is as nothing compared with other landsmen. On one
occasion the writer sat next to a fine old French gentleman from Quebec
who was then making his hundredth voyage; he was an octogenarian.
Some years later a Montreal merchant, nearly a quarter of a century
younger, informed me that he had crossed the ocean _one hundred
and eighty_ times! Taking his years into account, surely he must be
entitled to wear the blue ribbon. As to sailors, an English newspaper
recently offered a prize of £10 to the man who could prove that he had
crossed the Atlantic oftenest. The prize was awarded to Captain Brooks,
of Alaska, who had made seven hundred trips. In the meantime, however,
it transpired that the distinction was due to another “old salt,” whose
record far outran that of Captain Brooks, but whose modesty prevented
him from applying for the prize. The real champion is George Paynter,
well known throughout England and America as “the Old Man of the Sea,”
who recently completed his _eight hundred and fourth voyage_ across the
Atlantic. Paynter is the officer in charge of the wines and liquors on
board the SS. _Etruria_. He is one of the most remarkable men afloat
to-day. He has been forty-eight years at sea, of which forty-five have
been spent continuously in the service of the Cunard Company, and in
all that time he has never encountered either a shipwreck or a cyclone.
He is now seventy-five years old, hale and hearty as ever, and this he
attributes to his having given up smoking and drinking thirty-one years
ago, not having once indulged in either from that time until now.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] For at least a hundred and fifty years the Post Office Department
had maintained a fleet of armed mail “packets.” They had stations
at Dover, Harwich, Holyhead, Milford, Yarmouth and Falmouth, the
last-named being the headquarters of the fleet. During the time of the
American war, 1812-15, no fewer than thirty-two sanguinary battles were
fought with American privateers by the Falmouth packets, which, in a
majority of instances, successfully resisted their assailants.
[14] Sir John Burns in _Good Words_ for 1887, p. 261.
[15] Fry’s “History,” p. 240.
[16] The invention is claimed for Canada in Chapter X., under the
heading of “New Brunswick.”