The American settlers were always settlers what was happening “across the pond” in Britain. News and letters would come with the occasional merchant ship, but there was not anything remotely resembling a regular delivery service. Nor could there be, until advances in steam power and the industrial revolution for the first time created ship capable of traversing the oceans. Queen Victoria decided it was time to establish such a service, commissioning Samuel Cunard for a regular route between Britain and North America.

On this day, May 4, Samuel Cunard signed a contract to provide a service of three steamships and 200 horsepower. Cunard obtained  the assistance of Robert Napier, who was known for developing  the engines of some of the best new ships of his day, and financial backing of  James Donaldson, George Burns and David Maclver, who agreed to merge their own steamship companies with his. Their combined venture was called  the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company.

The Cunard line, as it became known, did not limit itself with just mail service. Its ships were the first to take passengers on regularly schedules trips between the continents, starting in 1840. In 1881 the Cunard line ship the Servia became the first lit up by electricity, and the Lucania, in 1901, had the distinction of being the first ship equipped with a wireless telegraph. Guglielmo Marconi, the father of wireless radio,  went on board to run experiments with the system,