Collins first interest in the ‘Atlantic Trade’ was in the early forties but as Cunard’s friend MacIver noted at the time ‘Quackery-not worth noticing-would only harm to publish-would excite more attention than it deserves’. Nevertheless Collins eventually attracted the attention of the US Government particularly one Senator Bayard of Delaware who declared that cost must not be considered when setting up American opposition to Cunard and that Congress select an American shipping expert and give him a free hand to proceed with the absolute conquest of this man Cunard. Two of Collins Line ships were launched on the same day, the 1st of February 1849, Atlantic first, followed by Pacific and both larger than anything Cunard had to offer, no expense was spared in their construction, indeed its their very opulence and of those that followed that eventually brought upon the downfall of Collins company with crippling debts in 1857.  EDWARD KNIGHT COLLINS Atlantic made her maiden voyage on the 27th of April 1850 bound for Liverpool however she struck a field of low lying ice which subsequently damaged her paddles, this slowed her first crossing to thirteen days much to the consternation of the American public, she however broke the record on her return voyage. Arctic and Baltic soon followed and it was on the former that the wife, son and daughter of HK Collins were to perish when Arctic was in collision with the French Steamer, Vesta on the 27th of September 1854. The final ship built for Collins was the Adriatic and she was to make only one crossing for the company before being laid up and sold to the Galway Company, her arrival on the scene was far too late to save Collins from bankruptcy! On April Fools Day 1858 the remaining three ships, Adriatic, Atlantic and Baltic went under the auctioneers hammer for a mere $50,000 to Dudley B. Fuller, a snip when one considers the cost of Adriatic’s building. Ironically Adriatic, still a record beater ended her days with Lever Line flying the Red Duster carrying mail from Galway and New York, an American Patriot later said “This magnificent Steamer alienated from the country that had refused to protect her and receiving the subsidy and flying the flag of our persistent and victorious rival, was an eloquent lesson of the causes that had wrought ruin of the American Merchant Marine”. And yet another declared that when the Stars and Stripes was run down and the Red Ensign was run up, it was “ a vivid sign of our national defeat and humiliation”. The advent and initial success of Collins came as something of a shock and wake up call to Cunard who immediately called for the building of Persia and Arabia in 1850, Asia and Africa also entered service this year. Before the new ships could be launched Collins was able to record that his ships were carrying fifty per cent more first class passengers than Cunard. The first Arabia never made the fleet of Samuel Cunard as she was sold whilst still on the stocks to the Royal Mail Line becoming La Plata to replace Amazon, which had disastrously burnt out and sunk on her maiden voyage on the 4th of January 1852. The second ship ordered, Persia, was renamed Arabia and made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on the 29th of December 1852, Captain C.H. Judkins was her Master.  CAPTAIN JUDKINS. In 1853 the company instigated a Mediterranean service and four ships were ordered to commence the route, Taurus, Melita, Jura and Balbec. The advent of the Crimean War in 1854 did little to boost Cunard on the Atlantic service, in all eleven of his ships were pressed into service by the Admiralty. With the war over in 1856 Cunard once more set his sights on dominating Atlantic trade and to that end he built his finest vessel to date, the iron hulled Persia, the first of her kind for the company and she was built at the yard of Robert Napier himself. PERSIA 
Built: 1856 by Robert Napier & Sons, Glasgow. Tonnage: 3,300 grt. Engine: Paddle, diameter 41 ft, side lever, jet condensing; 2 cylinder, 974 NHP, 4,570 IHP, by Builder. Passengers: 200 Cabin Class, Crew 440, Cargo capacity 1,050 tons. Cost: £130,000. Launched on the 3rd of July 1855 and completed trials on the 8th of January, at the time she was the longest vessel afloat, the first iron hulled transatlantic liner and by far the most luxurious.. Persia commenced her maiden voyage on the 26th of January with Captain Judkins in command, Collins Line Pacific had sailed three days earlier and she was the Blue Riband holder (no trophy as such until 1935) Cunard’s intention at the time was to overhaul, pass and wrest the fastest time for an Atlantic crossing from Pacific. Tragically Pacific disappeared without trace during her crossing and it was assumed she had run into the same ice field that Persia later ran into causing substantial damage to her bow and paddles. Persia managed to take the record in her first year crossing in nine days, four hours and forty-five minutes in the July, averaging a speed of 13.5 knots. She was sold out of the fleet in 1868 and was broken on the Thames in 1872. During the early fifties yet another pretender aspired to the throne of Samuel Cunard, this time it was an Englishman called William Inman. Inman was born in Leicestershire in 1825 and had served his apprenticeship in a provision house before moving to Richardson Brothers and Company who specialised in linen and general foodstuffs. Their business was that of victualling packets that ran from Liverpool to Philadelphia, within a few months he was invited to become a partner. It was when in this capacity that he first encountered the screw-powered steamship City of Glasgow, he eventually persuaded his partners to buy her and in 1850 she commenced their service from Liverpool to Philadelphia, to this ship were added City of Philadelphia and City of Manchester. Unfortunately in 1854 with the outbreak of war in the Crimea the Admiralty commandeered their ships, the Richardsons who were Quakers couldn’t in all conscience allow their ships to be armed and with no other option agreed to sell their interests to the twenty nine year old Inman.  WILLIAM INMAN 1825-1881. William Inman’s beginnings as sole owner of an Atlantic shipping company were far from auspicious when his much-favoured ship, City of Glasgow disappeared without trace in his first year of operation with 480 passengers and crew onboard. In the September of the same year his City of Philadelphia ran aground on her maiden voyage at Chance Cove, Newfoundland, fortunately all passengers and crew were rescued. City of Manchester’s career, his third ship was somewhat more fortuitous and from that moment on Inman commenced to prosper. The trade that Inman chose was that of the carriage of impoverished immigrants, particularly Irish at extremely cheap rates and his ships were the first to call at Queenstown thus saving the immigrants the unnecessary and costly crossing of the Irish sea to England. Direct comparisons made by Samuel Cunard with his ships and Inman’s led him to the conclusion that the time was right to build more screw powered ship, for instance Cunard’s paddle driven ships of which he owned a preponderance burnt coal at a rate of 75 tons a day, Inman’s 20, Cunard’s cargo capacity was 500 tons, Inman’s 1,200. Cunard’s first iron screw steamer with auxiliary sail had been the 1849 built British Queen, not to be confused with the British & North American SN Co of the same name, which had been completed in 1838. British Queen had started her career in the Mediterranean for Charles MacIver and also served on the Atlantic, her service with the company is possibly still a record today, some fifty years, being scrapped at Preston in 1899. Various claims have been made as to which ship was Cunard’s first purpose built iron hulled screw steamer purposely completed for its North Atlantic service, this has to be Andes, constructed by William Denny in 1852. Andes and her sister ship Alps were built for the Liverpool-Boston-New York-Chagres(Panama) trade in connection with the Great California Gold Rush of 1849. Both vessels served during the Crimean War and both finished their service in the Mediterranean before being sold to the Spanish in 1860. Jura and Etna both had the misfortune to be taken up by the Admiralty on completion in 1854/55 respectively before entering service for Cunard, neither ships had long careers with Cunard and were sold in 1860/61. Samuel Cunard was awarded a Baronetcy for his services during the Crimean War (Palmerston was his sponsor in 1859) and at wars end in April of 1856 fierce competition broke out between Cunard and a host of other new entrants onto the lucrative Atlantic route. By now the Collins Line was in dire financial straits and The Compagnie Transatlantique Belge was doing almost as badly with its ships, Belgique, Constitution and Leopold 1, in fact both went to the wall during the slump of 1857, as did other American concerns such as Enoch Trains Boston Packets, Cope Line and Ocean Line. At this point the French were all but absent but two German company’s of note were enjoying rather more success, Hamburg Americanische Paketfahrt Aktien Gesellschaft more commonly known as HAPAG and Norddeutscher-Lloyd., HAPAG represented the port of Hamburg whilst the latter Bremen.  EARLY HAPAG POSTER. Rivalry between these two great German companies was to continue for the next eighty years until the slump of 1930 when they formed an uneasy alliance calling themselves HAPAG-Lloyd. Due to the cachet of using the name Lloyd in ones company title, attributed to the Insurance house of that name, many non British company’s such as Hapag Lloyd added it to theirs in the hope it would lend some credibility to their somewhat dubious operations. MARATHON  Built: 1860 by Robert Napier & Sons, Glasgow. Tonnage: 1,784 grt. Engine: Single screw, Oscillating, geared, 650 NHP, 25 RPM. Passengers: 69 Cabin Class, 850 Third Class. Built for the Mediterranean service and transferred to the Atlantic run in 1866. Modernised in 1873, which included the addition of a 2 Cylinder, direct acting compounded engine increasing her weight to 2,393 grt. Chartered to the Government in 1882 for the Egyptian Campaign for 30s per ton per month. She made her last Atlantic voyage Sold to Workman, Clark & Co for £2,165 in 1898 and broken in Italy as Cypria the same year. In 1860 the company decided to divest itself of what it considered to be second-rate tonnage and embarked on a new build program, the first off the stocks was the screw propelled China followed by the company’s last paddle steamer Scotia. At the time Scotia was the largest and fastest paddle steamer on the Atlantic route except for the ever-present Great Eastern, she was certainly the most luxurious.  POSTER FROM THE EARLY 6O’s ADVERTISING SIDON. China is referred to in most historical books as being the first screw steamer built for Cunard on its Atlantic service. She clearly wasn’t, take out of the equation ships built for other owners and later purchased by Cunard for its North American trade there are still four ships built before China who all served on the said route and were all screw powered. Etna commenced on the route in 1856, Jura in 1857, and Palestine and Kedah in 1860, she was however by far the largest. CHINA  Built: 1862 by Robert Napier & Sons, Glasgow. Tonnage: 2,638 grt. Engine: Single screw, oscillating (Beam) geared, 2 cylinder, 480 NHP, Service speed 12 Kts. Passengers: 150 1st Class, 753 3rd Class. She made her maiden voyage Liverpool to New York on the 15th of March 1862, on her arrival, which had been delayed due to a broken tail shaft, and having to proceed on sail only she connected with the intermediate steamer British Queen bound for Nassau. She had attracted much attention prior to her departure and was considered to be the turning point in Cunard’s building program for the future especially when one considers that she was able to maintain the speed of Scotia, consume half as much coal and carry four times as many passengers. In 1874 her engines were compounded and her steam pressure was subsequently raised to 63lbs per square inch. In 1879 she served as a troop transport during the Zulu War and the following year was sold to Spanish interests. At the turn of the century she was sold on again and converted to a four masted barque becoming Theodore for Norwegian owners. Declared missing on a voyage from Tampa to Japan in 1907. SCOTIA.  Built: 1862 by Robert Napier & Sons, Glasgow. Tonnage: 3,871 grt, 2,125 nt. Engine: Paddle, side lever, jet condensing, 2 cylinder, 1,200 NHP, 13.5 Kts, by builder. Passengers: 275 Cabin Class, 300 2nd Class, 400 Crew. Scotia was originally fitted with three masts but was later reduced to two for her maiden voyage, which took place on the 10th of May, Liverpool to New York. She held the eastbound Blue Riband for five years 1863-69 achieving a crossing in 8 days 3 hours at an average speed of 14.02 knots. Sold in 1878 to T.C. & M Co for cable laying and underwent conversion at Laird Brothers of Birkenhead which included new engines and conversion to screw propulsion. Sold to the Commercial Pacific Cable Company in 1903 and was wrecked the following year at Spanish Rock, Guam. The American Civil War wiped out most of the emigrant traffic it also heralded a trade war in supplies, which included blockade running by both sides, fortunately the company was able to weather the conflict without too much impact on its profits. Samuel Cunard died in London aged seventy-eight on the 28th of April 1865, one of his last business acts was to dictate a letter of apology to his old friend and partner George Burns, in it he agreed, though no doubt contentiously, that Burn’s preference for screw over paddle was no doubt correct and that his, vice versa, was indeed no doubt out of date. The differing opinions had led to an angry impasse between the two old friends and Samuels letter was by way of a healing gesture. During the final year of conflict 25 new transatlantic vessels entered into service, Cunard’s contribution was the Tod & McGregor built Java, which acquired the nickname ‘Jumping Java’. The years other tonnage completed were four from the Thomson yard and all bound for the company’s Mediterranean service, they were Aleppo, Malta, Tarifa and Tripoli. ALEPPO.  Built: 1865 by J & G Thomson & Co, Glasgow. Tonnage: 2,057 grt, 1,399 nt. Engine: Single screw, 2 cylinder beam, 280 HP, 10 Kts by builder. Passengers: 46 Cabin Class, 593 3rd Class. Re-engined in 1879 by J. Jack & Sons of Liverpool with a two-cylinder compound, which gave a speed of 10 knots at a consumption of thirty-five tons a day. Re-engined again in 1890 with a triple expansion thus reducing her coal consumption by 50% and increasing her nominal horsepower from 212 to 220. After a long and distinguished career she was sold for breaking to Thomas Ward in 1909. As the decade came to a close Cunard, for the first time began to feel the winds of change and the strengthening of resolve of their adversaries. On the death of Samuel Cunard his Baronetcy and estate, including his shares in the shipping company had passed to his son Edward, sadly Edward was only to enjoy his new found status for four years before his death in 1869 and in turn was succeeded by his son Sir Bache Cunard. Ships added to the fleet to counteract the threat of competition from the likes of Guion Line owned by Stephen Barker Guion, Inman Line, Allan Line and Anchor Line included Russia and Siberia in 1867 and Samaria a year later. Siberia had been laid down as Socotra but had her name changed, as there was a ship of the same name registered to P&O. RUSSIA.  Built: 1967 by J & G Thomson & Co., Glasgow. Tonnage: 2,960 grt, 1,710 nt. Engine: Single screw, Inverted; 2 cylinder, 600 HP, 13 Kts by builder. Passengers: Initially 235 1st Class but later changed to 430 Saloon Class. Russia was a powerful looking ship and could steam at 14 knots with no problems whatsoever; she in fact won the coveted Blue Riband crossing from New York to Queenstown making the passage in eight days and twenty-five minutes. She made her maiden voyage Liverpool-New York on the 15th of June 1867 and was the final Cunarder to be built with a clipper stem and was known as ‘Rolling Russia’. Made her final voyage for Cunard on the 2nd of November 1878 to New York and was sold to Red Star, becoming Waesland in 1881. Fitted with a triple expansion engine by Thomsons in 1889 which increased her speed to 15 knots. Sunk on the 7th of March after colliding with Houston Line’s Harmonides off Holyhead with a loss of two lives. By 1870 Cunard was still the dominating force on the Atlantic, unfortunately they were relying too much on speed and reputation as opposed to the oppositions sheer opulence, even the French and Germans, albeit faltering because of the burgeoning Franco-Prussian War were beginning to make ground. With the full potential of what was to be termed the Atlantic Goldmine still to be realised the only country without decent ships on the route was America, even General Ulysses Grant was annoyed sufficiently enough to put pen to paper bemoaning ‘the tragedy of our drooping Merchant Marine’. Less than a third of America’s export/imports were carried in ships flying the Stars and Stripes and was costing the economy over $30 million a year. Neither its illustrious President nor its Secretary of the Treasury could stir more than a passing interest in Congress, due mainly its fair to say to the house already having had its fingers severely burnt by the collapsed Collins Line. Meanwhile the tide of immigrants from a beleaguered Europe continued to pour into America travelling on ships from every nation other than its own. Cunard introduced four more ships onto its Atlantic service in 1870, they were, Abyssinia, Algeria, Batavia and Parthia. The Thomson built Abyssinia was the last Cunarder to be powered by ‘simple engines’ but she was the first to be fitted with a straight stem and bathrooms, both port and starboard sides, she and her sister, Algeria were slower then Russia and economically not very sound. In an attempt to improve her viability Algeria’s Captain Mesurier used sail whenever possible, subsequently she was heavily rigged, alas both were only to survive in the company for ten years or so, Abyssinia finishing up at Guion Line whilst Algeria was sold to Red Star Line. Batavia served Cunard for thirteen years before moving on and ended her days as a Chinese Collier before being scrapped in 1924. Parthia’s career was equally short and left after fourteen years but on the other hand she was to serve for another incredible seventy-two years in one capacity or another, her days sadly ended as a log barge and was broken in 1956. Cunard’s supremacy was finally challenged by the arrival of Thomas Ismay’s Oceanic Steam Navigation Company when its first ship, Oceanic entered service on the 2nd of March 1871. This company would later become known as the famous ‘White Star Line’, which Thomas had acquired in 1867, and then it comprised a small fleet of Australian clippers. Atlantic, Baltic and Republic quickly followed OCEANIC.  Oceanic and boasted amongst other things promenade decks with open railings, every cabin had its own enlarged porthole, saloons that stretched from one side of the ship to the other, designated chairs in the dining saloon and all engine rooms were fitted with the new compound engines, these cut fuel costs by an enormous fifty per cent. These ships outshone anything on the Atlantic; the question then was could Cunard rise to the challenge. Cunard’s immediate answer was the launching of Bothnia and Scythia in 1874/75, both fell woefully short of the splendour and innovations of Ismay’s first four vessels. Both were built for the Boston-New York route and cost £125,000 each and were noted for their generous cargo capacity and comfortable passenger accommodation. Innovations introduced by Cunard was that of smoke rooms, even though they were small cramped and situated well out of the way, also an electric bell system was installed in the main saloon and state rooms. SCYTHIA.  Built: 1874 by J. & G. Thomson & Co., Glasgow. Tonnage: 4,557 grt, 2,907 nt. Engine: Single screw, Compound, vertical direct acting, 2 cylinder, 600 NHP, 12.5 Kts by builder. Passengers: 200 1st Class, 1,100 3rd Class, 150 Crew. She made her maiden voyage Liverpool-New York on the 1st of May 1875. On the 9th of July 1884 she made her first sailing on the Liverpool-Boston route and reverted back to Liverpool some fourteen years later, finally broken in Italy in 1899. In response to the rapid climb of Ismay’s popularity both Inman and Cunard were forced into piecemeal gestures, Inman’s was to lengthen his City of Brussels adding a promenade deck in the process, he also ordered three new 4,500 ton ships to be fitted out in the same manner as that of Ismay’s ships. Cunard’s whose fortunes gave every appearance of going downhill lengthened no less than seven of its ships and compounded the engines in a select few, this however did not save Cunard from losing its mail contract on its extra service to New York. And so, in less than fifteen years after Samuel’s death, Cunard had possibly reached the lowest point in its history. The Cunard-White Star competition was to continue from this moment on and for over the next sixty years consumed both the public and shipping world alike, it wasn’t until the British Government imposed a merger in the 1930’s that the rivalry was finally laid to rest. Go to Part Three/A> |
