1840 - Creation of the Steam Mail Packet Service

Last year, Samuel Cunard, 53 years old, was awarded the Mail Packet Service between Liverpool and Halifax, as he promised the British Admiralty to ensure a mail transport every fortnight all year long, what neither the Great Western Steamship Company nor the British and American Steam Navigation Company dared to propose.

He has accordingly established the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in Glasgow with his associates, famous George Burns, 45, a successful shipping businessman, even more famous Robert Napier, 49, an engineer and businessman expert in steam engines, David & Charles McIver, and James Donaldson.

The subvention amounts to £81,000 a year, which could buy two steam transatlantic packet ships.

Samuel Cunard is a skilful British-Canadian entrepreneur who made a fortune in shipping and whaling. He started to care in steam navigation in 1830 and became one of the many owners of the 1370-ton steamship Royal William (1831), which was famous as being almost the first to cross the Atlantic ocean in 1833 in 25 days - almost because she stopped the machinery and sailed a full day while her boiler was cleaned from salt. From that experience, Cunard was convinced of the maturity of steamships and went to Great Britain in 1837 to find investors for the purpose of a transatlantic steam mail service.

The company has immediately purchased four wooden 1,150-ton paddle steamers, Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia and Columbia, which have been built hastily and launched this year. They can host 115 passengers and carry 200 tons of cargo. Their single 740-hp two-cylinder engine, fed by four flue boilers, enables them to steam at 8.5 knots across the Atlantic ocean. Actually they are more powerful and faster. The flue boilers deliver 2 pounds of steam for a pound of coal at a pressure which is a bit under 10 psi.

¤ Delivering one hp requires 30 pounds of steam an hour, that is 15 pounds of coal - that are 10,500 pounds an hour for the whole machinery, or a bit less than five tons.

The fare is £35, which is equal to competition for a first-class cabin and service.

¤ As a term of comparison, the standard wages of a servant amount to £10 a year. They amount to £40 for an able seaman. Of course, both workers are lodged and fed.

Britannia sailed at 11 knots under sail and steam from Halifax to Liverpool for the return of her maiden round - a new record eastbound against the 10.2 knots achieved by Great Western in 1838.

A new standard has been established in terms of regularity and of reliability. Now America will be at ten to twelve days from Europe.

¤ The repeated financial crises of 1836, 1837 and 1839 turned to be worsened by the usual delay of information of thirty or thirty-five days at best between Europe and America which generated panics, heavy losses and bankruptcies within the banks and companies exposed to a risk abroad. Steam supplies a division of the latency by a factor three. The financial and political circles expect an improvement, if not a complete solution from it.

¤ Furthermore, it has become obvious in the United Kingdom that fast information was an instrument of better control & command. This is the stake of state intervention in mail transportation.

While the transatlantic service is opening, the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company has been awarded the mail service to Egypt and to India. She must open the line to India within two years.

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1838 - Crossing the Atlantic ocean under Steam

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IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

Note A - about the transatlantic mail service.

Cunard will remain the allottee of the mail contract all along the century. In 1847, the frequency is multiplied by 1.5 and the subvention is increased to £145,000. In 1852, the frequency is multiplied by two - a travel every week. The Allan line will be awarded a second contract on the Liverpool-Quebec line in 1867.

In 1850, the Admiralty appoints the American Collins line as the allottee on the route New York-Liverpool, with an American subvention amounting to $858,000 (£172,000) but, despite its huge cash flow, she collapses in 1858, having lost two ships, Artic (1854) and Pacific (1856). The New York-Liverpool line is allotted to the Inman line in 1863.

Note B - about the Far-East mail service

The Peninsular & Oriental steam Navigation Company opens the line to India in 1842, and to Far East (Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong) in 1845, then to Shanghai in 1849.

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SUGGESTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roy Claude Anderson - White Star - Prescot, 1964 - available on the Internet