Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Over eighty years of trans-Atlantic travel: a pictorial history showing the progress of Cunard, 1922

Over eighty years of trans-Atlantic travel: a pictorial history showing the progress of Cunard, 1922

Cunard Steamship Co.

Printed booklet

Bayldon/0202 


The Cunard Line, one of the world’s greatest fleets of ocean going vessels, commemorates the 175th anniversary of its first trans-Atlantic crossing in July 2015.

The history of the Cunard fleet is the story of crossing the North Atlantic by sail, steam and diesel, in vessels made from wood, to iron and steel.

Nova Scotian Samuel Cunard was awarded the first British trans-Atlantic steamship mail contract in 1839. With famous Scottish steamship designer and builder, Robert Napier, the men launched four paddle steamers on the Liverpool-Halifax-Boston route. These first mail steamers evolved into the massive luxury liners, floating palaces and ocean-going holiday resorts of the modern tourist’s world.  Cunard’s Laconia began its first around-the world cruise in January 1923, lasting 130 days and visiting 22 ports. 


The first Cunarder

By Margot Riley

The first Cunarder was the Britannia, ‘a plain and comfortable boat’ which crossed the Atlantic in a fortnight, marking a revolution in communication at a time when mail could take six weeks to reach its destination. The shipalso carried 115 first class passengers, 89 crew, 600 tons of coal, a cow to provide fresh milk and three cats to keep down the rats.  Within a decade the Line was crossing the Atlantic on a weekly basis, ferrying over 5 million emigrants to America between 1860 and 1900.

It has long been customary for shipping lines to have a common theme for naming their ships; the Cunard line used geographical regions ending in ‘ia’ such as Arcadia, Britannia, Franconia and Laconia, while the White Star Line named their ships ending in ‘ic’, the most famous being the 1870s vessel Oceanic and the ill-fated RMS Titanic.

The White Star Line focused on the UK-Australia trade, which increased swiftly after the discovery of gold in 1850, and also began operating between New York and Liverpool in the 1870s. White Star was committed to comfort and reliability rather than to speed; the Celtic cruised at 16 knots (30 km/hr) while Cunard’s Mauretania made 24 knots (44 km/hr). It was also the first shipping line to have passenger ships with inexpensive accommodation for third-class passengers. Its Oceanic-class of liners (1870-1872) carried up to 1,000 passengers increasing to 2,000 with the introduction of its “Big Four” Olympic-class ocean liners between 1901 and 1907.   

Francis Joseph Bayldon (1872–1948)

Francis Joseph Bayldon was a master mariner and nautical instructor whose extensive nautical collection, comprising some 900 items, has been part of the Mitchell Library collection since the mid 1940s.

'The doyen of Australian seafarers', Bayldon retired from the merchant service in 1910, highly qualified in all branches of seamanship, a marine surveyor and a compass adjuster. On 3 May 1910, he opened the Sydney Nautical Academy (later the Sydney Nautical School) ‘catering for all types of nautical certificates and later on for Civil Aviation licences as well'; he had some 3000 successful students. In 1947, he sold the school to Captain W. D. Heighway and it later formed the basis of navigation studies at Sydney Technical College. Ardently interested in maritime history and exploration, Bayldon was also a fellow of the Royal Australian Historical Society.