Samuel Cunard didn’t set out to dazzle; he set out to be on time. This episode shows how a quiet operator from Halifax built an “ocean railway” of steamers, turned reliability into an unbeatable moat, and shrank the Atlantic for commerce, family, and nations alike.
Samuel Cunard didn’t chase headlines - he built them, quietly. Born within earshot of Halifax’s ice-free harbor, young Samuel grew up watching masts fill the skyline and hearing the creak of ships as they loaded mail and news from abroad. That waterfront childhood hard-wired his fascination with reliability, schedules, and the power of connecting people across distance.
By his early twenties, Cunard had a reputation for competence and public service (he even led a local fire company), and in 1812 he entered business with his father as A. Cunard & Sons. The firm traded timber and West Indies goods and, crucially, earned scarce licenses during wartime embargoes—an early proof that trust compounds like interest when you deliver, day in and day out.
Mail became his flywheel. First came dependable packet runs between Bermuda and Halifax, then Boston, each contract won the same way: show up on time, every time. In a world still years away from a working telegraph, timely mail wasn’t a convenience—it was the circulatory system of commerce. Cunard saw an opening: if sail could be replaced by steam, delivery times could be predicted, not guessed.
His “master’s degree” in steam arrived via the Royal William, a pioneering project Cunard helped set in motion. After setbacks and a cholera-induced quarantine shuttered its first ownership group, the ship ultimately crossed the Atlantic under steam in 1833—proof that coal-fired power could carry the future. Cunard devoured every operational detail he could, from fuel consumption to sea-keeping, translating observation into advantage.
Then came the eight months that changed everything. In 1839, the “quiet colonial from Halifax” went to London, secured a Royal Mail contract (worth £55,000 per year), hired elite builder-engineer Robert Napier to construct four 960-ton steamers, and raised £270,000 from a who’s-who of British investors—founding the British & North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company, soon known simply as Cunard Line.
In February 1840 the flagship Britannia launched from Glasgow; that summer, Cunard rode her westbound to Halifax in roughly 12½ days—an astonishing reduction from sail passages that could stretch to 12 weeks. With each steady eight-and-a-half-knot mile, Cunard’s “ocean railway” moved from vision to system.
The ripple effects were immediate and immense. Trade boomed—Boston’s foreign commerce more than doubled in the 1840s, and customs receipts swelled—as predictable Atlantic schedules tied markets, families, and governments together with new speed and trust. Cunard’s service even helped foster goodwill and policy alignment between New England, Canada, and Britain in the decade ahead.
What made Cunard different wasn’t flash; it was discipline. He preferred plain, durable ships over showpieces, prized safety (hard-earned from years as a wharf-side observer and firefighter), kept meticulous notes, and lived by the compounding power of being on time. He hired strong lieutenants, communicated clearly, never burned bridges, and stayed on the front lines—inspecting yards, riding ships, and learning from crews. The result: allies on both sides of the Atlantic and a brand synonymous with reliability for nearly two centuries.
Key takeaways for founders today: go slow to go fast (quality first, then scale); turn observation into iteration; communicate expectations simply; and protect relationships as zealously as margins. Do these relentlessly and, like Samuel Cunard, you won’t just ship product—you’ll shrink oceans!
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Sam Walton: Simple Ideas & Deep Business Impacts
Imagine with me for a moment. It's almost the year 1800. As a youth, your world is developing rapidly and as a new daybreaks, your senses are greeted in the following way.
From his bedroom window overlooking the waterfront. Young Samuel was a spectator of the seafaring world here. Merchant ships and min of war swung at anchor or tied up at one of the many wars that reached out from the shores of Halifax's magnificent Ice-Free Harbor.
The Royal Navy Dockyard was located just to the north of the Cunard property. Samuel's. Earliest memories were the sight and sounds of the waterfront. Almost daily, he would've awoken to see a forest of different size masts. His other senses, would've taken in the smell of the hemp locum tar and drying canvas, and the sounds of block and tackle the hammer, the [00:01:00] ads, the blacksmith anvil, and always the living sounds of the vessels themselves as they creaked and groaned the movement of the water beneath their keels. No vessel entering the harbor caused greater interest than packet boats. Arriving from England, they brought the mails and newspapers containing news from Europe and the outside world,
which was quickly reproduced in the local weekly newspapers.
This powerful scene is the landscape that I believe seeps into the subconscious of Samuel Cunard, and it propels him deeply into business from the age of 10 until the day he dies more than 65 years later, His reputation for building safe, durable, and reliable ships is the sole foundation that enabled the Cunard line to become one of the world's oldest continuously operating shipping lines with more than [00:02:00] 185 years of service. To date. This my friend, is a remarkable story of a life well lived, and it comes from the book that I'd like to talk to you today about, which is called Steam Lion.
A biography of Samuel Cunard that was written by John G. Langley
In our modern world today, so many people are seeking to be the next Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, or perhaps Bill Gates or any of the other high profile CEOs and founders that we see so constantly on the news. They're chasing big fortunes and quick riches, and you often hear founders talking about their exit strategy before they even get off the ground.
Amongst all this noise, we can find solace and take a step back and turn our focus on great founders and entrepreneurs from the past that were deeply driven to live their passions, put in long hours of work each day. They stayed the course and built enduring [00:03:00] companies by simply following their purpose in life. For them, work just turned into play.
These are the foundational warriors that we should be allowing to guide us. Those like Samuel Ard, who was not overly charismatic. He lacked flashy clothing and he ditched his ego. Instead, he focused on hiring the proper lieutenants. He worked on the front lines, inspecting his ships as they were being built, and then also during their operational lives.
His ships were classic in nature. They weren't fancy and they weren't built for speed. He crafted them for reliability. And durability. In short, to simplify things down, Samuel Cunard trusted the compounding power of being on time. This was his number one cornerstone in life. For him, it was everything being on time in [00:04:00] this compounded from the time that he was a youth all the way through until the end of his life. And it snowballed along the way, getting bigger and bigger as he won bigger and bigger contracts and expanded his fleet.
It's this discipline that compounds and it turns his company into a longstanding institution that still exists to this day. And this is a story that I'm really excited to share with you today.
Possibly this is the first time you've heard of Samuel Cunard, and I hope by the end of the episode, you'll have a good feel of who he was, what made him deeply driven,
The principles he used to build his business. And most of all, you'll take a few lessons away that you can actually use in your own personal business or your personal life. Before we get started, I just wanted to welcome you to the show. Today on the podcast, you and I have the chance to talk about great entrepreneurs from business history, and I share some of the most [00:05:00] valuable lessons from the books that we cover.
For each episode, I read a new book, which today's book is kind of short, I think it was like 135 pages, so that's about five hours of reading for me, and then I take tons of notes along the way and I distill those down into a show outline, which normally takes just as long to compile as it does to read the book.
So that's like another five hours for this episode. I did some extra research on Cunard, say maybe three hours to do that research. And then after that, I review the outline two or three times I record the podcast and edit it down. So that's another two to three hours. So for this one episode today, I have maybe about 15 to 17 hours of work into it.
All in all by the time you add everything up, which is actually on the shorter side of episodes that I normally produce. I would say most of the times they're probably more in the 35 to 40 [00:06:00] hour range just for an episode. And for me it's just an incredibly enjoyable process and I really feel lucky that I can share it with you.
I find that it greatly enhances my learning process. In addition, my memory retention. In the past, I was just banging through books. I'd read a book, put it on the shelf, go to the next one, and two years later I would look at the book and I could only remember a few things. But by going through this process of outlining, recording the podcast, editing it, and putting it out there for the world, it actually helps me focus and retain more information.
And at the same time, I see it as a service for you, my friend, for something that you might be able to pick up and take away and use in your business as well. Some of these valuable lessons that you and I talk about. If you did find some value in the episode today, maybe you can just do me a quick favor and leave me a review or some feedback on your favorite podcast player.
I would greatly appreciate that, and that would help me [00:07:00] out a Great deal. I'm new here and I'm just trying to get things off the ground and started, so any feedback that you have would be highly appreciative and I thank you in advance. The show is a hundred percent ad free, and if you do like the books and you use the link in the show notes to purchase one of them, I am gonna be donating 100% of that affiliate revenue to help support children's literacy, which is a cause that I firmly, firmly believe in.
Speaking of books, this book Steam Lion, is an excellent book for your library. It's a quick read, but it gives you the perfect insight into Samuel CUNARDS life. Plus, it'll give you all the details as the show here is just focused on the major lessons from each of the books that you and I talk about. This is why I always recommend picking up a copy of the book, if you can.
With that, how about we jump in our way back machine and we're gonna head back to Wednesday, November [00:08:00] 21st, 1787, where we find ourselves this week in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Samuel Cunard was born to Abraham and Margaret Cunard. He was the second of nine children. And in the book it says that he was born with salt in his veins, which I think is absolutely correct.
You see, the family home, as we heard at the opening, was just spitting distance from the harbor. His parents, they were British loyalists who had immigrated to Halifax in 1783 from Philadelphia during the American Revolution.
While many loyalists would struggle to find shelter in work, Abraham Cunard, he was a skilled carpenter and he,was fortunate to acquire a prime lot of land by the water, and what he would do is he would build a two story home there for the family, , he was able to easily find work in Halifax's building homes. As the [00:09:00] city was growing quite rapidly with all of the British loyalists that were fleeing from the United States
During Samuel's early years, he was heavily influenced by his father as he observed how skilled he was at his business dealings, his father is gonna start acquiring more and more land, which would lead him to start harvesting timber, and a large portion of the timber at the time went into building ships.
So naturally he would drift towards building and acquiring his own ships over time and along with that, he also focuses on building out the Cunard Wharf and his storage warehouses that were located right by the wharf.
This environment is gonna become Samuel's trading Ground,
along with building a strong business in the community. His father and mother. They're gonna build strong connections in Halifax with the loyalist community. This played a really big role in Samuel's life as he's growing up [00:10:00] because this enables him to feel those strong bonds of connection with Britain. As we'll see later on in the show, he would actually spend a lot of time there making deals to help build his steamships. And eventually he would move there and pass away there.
So at this really early age, his eyes, they're really wide open to his surroundings and we can see that his father is working really hard He feels the social connections amongst the communities in which they're rooted here in Halifax. It's not gonna take him very long to start making his own way in business. And let's just jump into the book and take a first look at how deeply Driven Samuel was at just the age of 10.
He soon learned his way around the waterfront, and it wasn't long before he engaged in his first business initiative, gathering up remnants from broken lots of dry goods and packaging and reselling them at a profit. The Halifax Piers were his training [00:11:00] grounds. The experience he gained there would shape his character
at this very early age. He's really crafting his work ethic and he's developing his business skills. This is something that we see in so many of the great entrepreneurs that we study on the show. for example, Sam Walton and Ed Thorpe both learned to serve his customers through their paper routes. Henry Ford, he helped his neighbors with mechanical issues, developing his skills and building a solid reputation. Elon Musk coded and sold video games at the age of just 12.
And right here, it's the same for Samuel Cunard. He follows his father's hard work ethic. And in the next section from the book, I think this is really the first view that you and I get into his deeply driven nature That's gonna propel Samuel forward for the duration of his life.
Let me just read for you here.
As a boy, Samuel was rather unremarkable in appearance, but what he lacked [00:12:00] physically, he more than made up for an energy, an initiative from his early childhood. He was never known to waste a single moment of the day he was born with ambition and an unbending will to succeed regardless of the task.
Before he had become a teenager, Samuel had already developed business skills beyond his years through his enterprise to sell remnants of lots on the waterfront, His boyhood experience of buying, selling, and marketing of commodities, however small, gave him the confidence that would be the hallmark of his success in the years to come.
One sentence really stood out for me here. He was born with ambition and an unbending success regardless of the task. I just love that particular sentence right there. This is the fire inside, and if I just read it again, he was born with [00:13:00] ambition and an unbending will to succeed regardless of the task.
I really believe that Samuel would have excelled at just about anything that he chose to do in life. His environment in this instance,
is going to be his ultimate guide. Samuel, he was a heavy observer of all things around him, much like how Sam Walton was a keen observer of how his competition conducted business,
and he used those high quality ideas to strengthen and grow his own business.
When Sam Walton first started out, a lot of his stores were very basic in nature and barely put together, and what he would do is he would go out and he would seek out the best ideas from his competition and then integrate that into his stores in over time, that got better and better and better.
It took him five years to get his first store in Newport, Arkansas from barely breaking [00:14:00] even.
I think they were making something like $70,000 a year in sales to five years later they were doing $250,000 in sales. But it really took him that amount of time to learn. In Sam Walton's book Made in America, which is his autobiography, he actually thanks Kmart for all of the innovative ideas that he got from them that he would implement in his own store.
for Samuel Cunard, he applies that exact same philosophy just 150 years before Sam Walton did it.
And this my friend, is really an important concept to keep in mind as we move forward here. Samuel like Sam Walton would derive success by observation, experimentation. Application and expansion. He really understood from a young age that he had to start slow in order to go fast. Now, as Samuel's [00:15:00] growing, he really understood that it was important to be engaged with the community as well.
And at the age of 21, he's gonna become the president of the Sun Fire Company, where he would make decisions about how to put out fires. He would also make decisions about what structures in the community might be a fire hazard and potentially how to be torn down. And then he also oversees the placement of various wells that needed to be sunk around the community.
So that his crews could have access to water during emergencies.
Through these efforts, Sam learned a great deal about fire and later on in life, as he's building out the Q Nard line, he would actually place a lot of emphasis on how to properly protect his wooden ships from fire. Safety was always his top priority,
where most of the other ship builders and the owners of these ships would often overlook these [00:16:00] aspects and place them at a lower value. Not for Cunard. He took the extra time, but that was time well spent
because as we just mentioned a minute ago, he really knew that by going slow, building your fleet one ship at a time, could eventually go fast. As his reputation for safety and reliability grew along with his physical fleet size.
And guess what? He wasn't losing ships due to fire.
The takeaway here is go slow to go fast. Cunard, he understood this from an early age, and it gives him a great deal of leverage later on in life. And I think this is something that we can learn from Samuel to take your time to build things out slowly and with care, put quality into your work and understand the process.
once you have a feel for the flow, then we can start producing our high quality goods or replicating our services [00:17:00] with a little bit more speed. And this is gonna compound over time, and it's gonna gain us a solid reputation in much the same way as it did for Samuel Cunard.
One thing that Henry Ford said that I really love, he said, quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
And this really describes Cunard perfectly 'cause he was adamant about quality.
This was something that his father saw and admired in Young Samuel. And together they're gonna go into business under the name a q Nard and Sons in 1812, so that they can engage primarily in the timber trade as their landholdings had increased quite a bit during this time to thousands of acres. Then in addition, they're gonna also begin engaging in trade with the West Indies Shortly after they get this business off the ground, the war of 1812 is gonna break out.
And as a result, Canadian merchants are gonna be faced with an embargo of goods from the United [00:18:00] States. However, a few merchants are gonna be granted licenses that are gonna allow them to continue to trade. And Samuel with his good reputation is gonna be one of those merchants who would receive one of those very few limited licenses.
As a result, he's gonna fill up his warehouses with goods such as spirits, molasses, brown sugar, coffee, and tea from the Indies.
it says in the book, they would also acquire their first full rigged ship, which was called the White Oak and things right here for Cunard. They're really looking up.
He's gonna meet his wife around this time. They would be married in February of 1815, and together they're gonna have nine kids.
Samuel would construct a modest four story home for the family in Halifax shortly after they had gotten married and business was really good. And it says the following in the book,
A Cunard and Sons was found and prospered [00:19:00] under Samuel's energy, reliability, and good reputation.
Born with a strong work ethic. He was customarily at the wharfs before dawn each day buying cargoes from the West Indies and
also brought in under government license from the United States. Until peace came in 1815, the foundation had been laid for a company that would capture the imagination of the world.
The key word foundation was absolutely correct. you see around this time, he is gonna start picking up British male in the UK controlled territory of Bermuda and transporting it back to Halifax.
This had two major impacts for Samuel. First, it gave him the opportunity to become familiar with the carriage of males, and it gave him the chance to meet authorities that were connected with the British male Service. And then second is he gained a solid reputation for steady, reliable [00:20:00] service with the home office back in England.
This was really a big deal at the time.
This concept that of a compounding power, of being on time, this is a huge deal and it really compounds for Samuel.
And right here it's starting to gain a little bit of momentum. It's like a snowball rolling down a hill. It's starting to pick up just a little bit of speed, and as it grew, he's gonna soon dedicate two ships. The Susan and the Emily, They're gonna be contracted by the British to carry mail both ways between Bermuda and Halifax. This was his first official mail contract.
Samuel's gonna continue to build his reputation for being on time, and it's gonna gain him additional contracts to deliver mail into Boston a few years later, and this greatly increases his revenues into his company.
And one thing that we have to keep in mind here at this [00:21:00] point in history is that the telegraph was still under development. It's gonna be five more years before Samuel Morris would devise a practical system in 1837, and then another 10 years for to start becoming more commonplace. So Samuel has about a 15 year period of time here, which he can capitalize on delivering the mail in a reliable, in an on time fashion.
And he's just going to enjoy the benefits of this compounding effect over this period of time. So the written word right here, this was the primary way to conduct business. The unscheduled and the erratic arrival of the mail from Britain and its territories often took weeks or months, especially those that were crossing the Atlantic. And when they did arrive, there was often a great anticipation for receiving the mail and the news to see what was going on.
Now, just imagine for a second that you had sent a business letter and [00:22:00] it took 12 weeks to be delivered to England from Canada or the United States, and then it took 12 weeks to get a reply. I mean, basically you're looking at a half a year to really get anything done, and that was just the way of life at the time.
Now, along comes Samuel Cunard. Who's delivering the mail reliably and timely between Bermuda and Halifax. The compounding snowball is growing and growing over time here and as described in the book Samuel, he was a very keen observer and he was already thinking about how he can improve upon the situation, especially with transport across the Atlantic Ocean.
As he's mulling this over in his mind, he continues to expand his fleet of ships under his father's watch
As they were buying used ships at auction, and then they would fix them up and resell 'em. Basically, they were flipping ships, if you [00:23:00] will, and for the first time, they also started to contract out the building of their own ships, and this would have a major impact for Samuel in the long run, and it gave them a few major benefits and learnings right here.
The first is that he learned the builders and the engineers in the industry who were reliable and who did good work. And then also he learned who to avoid. Then second, he let his reputation be known to others. That is a man of his word, a man who spoke directly and with clear language about what he expected without any confusion.
These are really key elements for you and I that we can learn from Samuel here
that of building solid relationships, those that he would keep over the duration of a lifetime. In the book it says that he almost never argue with anyone, and he had very few instances of falling out with business associates, relationships or everything, and we should [00:24:00] always invest heavily in developing and nurturing them.
Then the second item was that of clear communication with his contractors and those that worked for him, as we spoke about so many times in the past. For example, in the last episode, we spoke about Herb Kellerher and how insistent he was about communication, communication, and more communication with his employees.
He wanted to give them the state of the business.
Make sure they understood what their goals were and how important and how loved they were to the organization. This helped them turn Southwest Airlines culture into a family, which is extremely difficult to do in an organization, but it is accomplishable with relationships and communication.
This is what Samuel Cunard did. He built relationships on both sides of the ocean and he communicated clearly
another major trait of Samuel, we've [00:25:00] mentioned this a little bit already, was his ability of observation.
as he is acquiring and building ships, he starts to take notice of a new and innovative technology that was starting to become prominent in the shipping industry in that of Steam.
Although it would take him many years before he would start using this technology in his own fleet,
His company is gonna continue to grow and with time, his father's gonna retire in 1920,
this would see Samuel dissolve a Cunard and Sons inform his own company, s Cunard and Company in 1824, which would hold large tracks of land in Nova Scotia in the surrounding areas that had been inherited from his father Abraham. And then his fleet would continue to grow with more than 45 sailing vessels up to this point.
Those inbound shipments are gonna fill up his newly constructed four story warehouse on the wharf with trade goods.
Ships going outbound to the indies would [00:26:00] be full of fish and timber and those coming inbound had a constant flow of sugar, rum, molasses, and coffee, and most importantly that of tea. And why was tea the most important? Good question. Here you see, Q Nard had learned that the East India company who controlled the trade with China was considering opening a route from China to Quebec.
Instead of relying upon unreliable letters to try to win this business, Samuel, he's gonna immediately board a ship for London to meet with the East India company, and he's gonna convince them that shipping to Quebec
it was a bad idea due to the harsh winds and the seasonal ice in the area, and that Halifax would indeed be a better option as their ports were ice free year round. And then he had the WFS in the warehouses to sell the tea to auction on their behalf. Let's just [00:27:00] jump into the book here. I wanted to just read a few selections so that you could get a feel of how this worked out.
After five months in London negotiating with East India Company officials, Cunard successfully secured the agency for the delivery of tea directly to Nova Scotia
with the Prize T Agency, which Q Nard retained for the next 37 years.
From this time, the Cunard Wars became a great object of attraction. first because the countless of hardcore came from such an immense distance. And second, because its cargo was all tea. The ship smelled like a teapot.
It was a large vessel too. Perhaps 1200 tons a monster at that time for any merchant.
The precious cargo was stored in the Commodious Cunard warehouse as agent for the East India company. Cunard advertised a public sale that would be held [00:28:00] June 19th, 1826 with all the tea open for inspection for five days before and on the sale date a printed catalog would be available.
this would also be a major boost to his status in Nova Scotia, along with other Providences. In addition, he would make a wealth of connections in London during his time there, connections that would set him up for success later on in life.
I really like to think of this as a younger version of Samuel taking care of an older version of himself. Plus it also acts as a major insight for us right here, that meeting and developing relationships in person can have major impacts in our business. In the book it says the following,
traveling about London meeting and mixing with government officials Members of the British Mercantile class gave Cunard a tremendous advantage over his peers in Halifax who chose to run [00:29:00] their businesses from the comfort of their offices in this distant port.
the ability to listen, observe, and present himself to the London establishment was an advantage that he would exploit to the fullest and would ultimately set Cunard apart from these contemporaries back home who conducted their business through the impersonal and irregular postal system.
it's amazing that 200 years ago, ARD was not afraid to jump on a ship, sail across the ocean and meet people in person. As he knew this was really important for securing the contract that he desired for his company. Just think how much easier we have it today. I mean, we can jump on a plane, work on a deal, and be back home in a few days. If Samuel can sit on a ship for six to eight weeks, maybe even up to 12 weeks. One way to secure a contract that should give us a great deal of motivation to book a plane ticket, [00:30:00] go hammer out a deal, or build new relationships, or cultivate existing ones.
We should really let Samuel be a guide right here for you and I to keep that deep drive going, to expand out our businesses and push for greater things and build our relationships. The next time you're sitting in an airport at a layover. Just think about Samuel, how he had the layover in a ship for weeks and weeks and weeks at a time.
Let that give us strength that in modern times, we're very quite fortunate that we can quickly book travel, jump on a plane, go work on a deal, and be back home. I find that incredibly inspiring for my personal life. I know I've been out on the road traveling before and at times it hasn't been the most fun thing to do, but that just gives me motivation.
If someone like ARD can do this 200 years ago, use his deep drive as a fire to help propel him forward. Then you and I, my friend, we can use that [00:31:00] in our lives as well. Just super powerful. Let's see, so at this point, things are gonna continue to develop for Cunard and in 1826 he's gonna find himself involved with helping a company called General Mining Association or GMA.
and what they were doing is they were developing coal mining fields in Nova Scotia
This really had a profound impact on his education as they're gonna be using the first steam engine in the area as a way to pump water out of the mineshafts that they were digging
For QA, this is gonna have the following impact. Let me just read for you from the book here.
Samuel Cunard, who perhaps reflected on the marvels of steam and the seemingly limitless supply of coal, literally at his feet. Steam and coal for Samuel Cunard was present and the future were drawing ever closer [00:32:00] together,
this innovative technology of the day, it's seeping closer and closer towCunards CunCunards purpose in life. I really like to think that the snowball is rolling in a decent speed, and along the way it's going to add coal and steam to the avalanche that's coming. But before this, he's gonna suffer a really great tragedy
When his wife dies in 1828, giving birth to their ninth child, Elizabeth samuel is just devastated here, and he's actually gonna take time away from growing his empire and he's gonna stay at home with his children. And this is a move I greatly respect. In the book it says the following about ard.
For the first time in his busy life, Samuel Cunard, ever driven by an unbridled sense of purpose and achievement, slowed down to take stock of his life And to focus on that which he valued more than anything else. His [00:33:00] family, for the next two years, between 1828 and 1830, Cunard stayed close to home while his family adapted to the loss of their mother.
during this time, Samuel devoted as much of his time as possible to his children.
at this time, this was the right move for him. He puts his family first. His mother-in-law, Susanna Duffy, would eventually move into the house and take over the role of looking after the children while Samuel was away. And this really worked out well for him, for Samuel, he would never remarry and he kept his wife in high regard and he generally would just focus on taking care of the family and then growing his business.
Slowly he's gonna reintegrate back into his business life and when he does so he takes notice of two new steamships that were in the area. Through his observation, he saw that they kept really steady speeds because they [00:34:00] weren't reliant upon the wind. With that steady speed, he began to figure out that he could start putting parameters around delivery times, and this starts fitting perfectly into his model of reliable time between different ports on the water.
, Another major thing happens here is that the Canadian legislature, they're gonna offer a 3000 British pound incentive for anyone who could bring a steamship to the area to help facilitate the faster movement of goods between Canadian provides in a reliable manner.
This is right up Conard's alley.
this, of course, was enough to dip his toe in the water, and what he would do is he would form the Quebec and Halifax steam navigation company.
Along with 196 other investors, they're gonna select Samuel to be the primary representative of the company on their behalf. [00:35:00] Thus, they're gonna commission and build their first steamship called the Royal William.
This ship is gonna be launched on April 27th, 1831, to a crowd of more than 30,000 people. That is a lot of people.
I can only imagine being one of those people at the time, coming out to see the newest cutting age innovation being put on the water, going into service.
Now something important was really taking place here with the Royal William, I see this simply as Samuel getting his master's degree in steamships. And at the same time, I can really feel that he has the same spirit and curiosity right here as Sam Walton did. Let me just read for you here so you can get a sense of overwhelming desire and curiosity to always be learning.
The ship was repeatedly visited by Samuel in Halifax. Cunard lost no opportunity to inquire about every particular [00:36:00] regarding its speed, sea qualities, and consumption of fuel. Carefully noting down all of the information obtained, which Doubtlessly enabled him to establish a magnificent fleet of Oceangoing ships that still bear his name.
on the side of the page. Next to that paragraph in my book, I wrote Sam Walton. That was the first thing that popped to mind when I read that selection. As Sam was always visiting his stores,
he took detailed notes of what his competitors were doing correctly, and then he applied all that good stuff to his business for Samuel Cunard. Same thing. He's learning as much as he can about steamships. This is really his education later in life when he is building even bigger ones.
He uses this information as a means to make them more durable and reliable. Just super, super valuable for you and I to always keep our eyes and our ears [00:37:00] open in business, you never know what might present itself in the oddest of ways that we can use as an unfair advantage to help us grow, expand, or improve our services, or possibly even co cost.
The lesson here, my friend, always stay curious. You never know what you're gonna find out there. And for QNR, the best thing that he got out of the Royal William. Was the knowledge, as you see in 1832, cholera had arrived in Quebec and the ship would have to be placed into quarantine for most of 32. As many passengers aboard had been ill, and this is gonna result in the holding company going out of business because they weren't able to generate any revenues from the ship.
So the Royal William is gonna be sold at auction to a new group of investors. but the story and the learning for Cunard is not done just yet with the Royal William. As you [00:38:00] see the new investors, they're gonna offer up this steamship for ocean going travel. And this was a bit crazy at the time because it wasn't really known if a steamship could possibly carry enough coal to make it across the ocean.
I mean, it still had sails that they could use, but this was really a big test at the time, most people thought it was simply impossible to fuel itself across the ocean, and it really made Cunard sit up and take notice. He took a lot of interest in this. So what would happen is that the Royal William would take off on August 18th, 1833 from Quebec to cross the Atlantic.
They would have a total of seven passengers. I guess they didn't want to take the risk either, and then they would have 36 crew members and listen to this 330 tons of coal. That is a lot of coal. And I just had to look this up to see if I could get a [00:39:00] comparison on this, and I found out that one. Train car holds a hundred tons of coal.
So I guess that would be what, 3.33 and a half rail cars full of coal. So the next time you see a train passing by, just check out, you know, four of those cars. That was how much coal was loaded on the ship at the start.
And so it says in the book, solely under steam power, they're gonna arrive in England on September 12th for a total crossing time of 25 days. Right here, the Royal William, this was the first steamship to cross the North Atlantic from West. To East under its own power that of coal and for Cunard,what would he think when he hears the news?
Well, that is a great question. Let's find out.
Cunard. Hearing of the safe travel of the Royal William in London was pleased but not surprised. Cunard was [00:40:00] already contemplating how he could employ the innovation and technology demonstrated by the Royal William in his own plans for the future. The ship would become the template for CUNARDS first Transatlantic steamer.
Still years away.
This was the year 1833, and Cunard personally owned more than 70 ships. he loved taking a hands-on approach. And this really reminds me of Sam Za Murray, the banana man that we covered in episode nine, who knew his business from A to Z in the following way.
His years in the jungle gave him experience, raring the trade. Unlike most of his competitors, he understood every part of the business from the executive suite where the stock was manipulated to the ripening room where the green fruit yellowed. He was contemptuous of banana men who spent their lives in the north, far from the plantations.
Those schmucks, what do they know? They're [00:41:00] there and we're here.
This aspect of zaur matches up so well with Cunard. In the book it says the following.
Unlike his contemporaries, Cunard was very much a hands-on businessman. He enjoyed nothing more than sailing aboard his own vessels. Whenever the occasion arose, given the nature of his business, he had ample opportunity to sail about the maritime providences and to cross the Atlantic Ocean
in this way, he was able to gain firsthand experience with wind, weather, and water conditions. perhaps more importantly, he learned how both vessels and crew performed in all manner of conditions
and time spent during coastal cruising or ocean crossings. Why arduous by today's standCunards was never wasted when he wasn't on the bridge, Cunard could be found in his state room. Turned office fomenting plans for his next venture, or attending to [00:42:00] his correspondence.
Throughout his career, ard shunned public speaking. He was a man. A few spoken words, however, what he lacked in theatrical style and ability, He more than made up for in writing. QUT Ard had a writing style that reflected his own personality.
He wrote what he thought he did not mince or waste words
like
Sam Walton, and I know we've mentioned Walton many times on the show today, and I just feel that these two guys really are kindred spirits. They had the same mentality and that's why I keep bringing him up.
Walton was always in and out of his stores talking to his employees and his customers, and he learned what worked and what didn't work. Just absolutely a firsthand learning lesson for you. And I mean, if this worked for Samuel Cunard, Sam Za Murray,and Sam Walton, well, I think it's gonna work very, very nicely for us.
Always stay [00:43:00] connected to the business core that services our customers. This is where you win my friend. Now, if your job is working on the front lines, as you start to move up the business, or you start to look at owning your own businesses, take note of your current position. How does it feel? Remember these times and use them later on as you talk to those who are working in those positions and use that experience to build your connections.
Always be listening and always be learning. This is what keeps us humble and grounded, it allows us to think simple and keep a small family feel as we're building our organizations. When you stay connected like this, and it's ultimately gonna allow you to drive and build a culture, one that you can be really, really proud of, and one that you can grow long term, my friend, and have that firm stability in your organization or in your business.
As Samuel [00:44:00] Cunard was observing everything around him, he's gonna find himself heading back to England with one purpose in mind, that of winning the contract to carry Transatlantic male. The race is really on at this time because you see the Royal William had demonstrated that crossing the Atlantic using only steam was possible and it didn't take long for other ships to accomplish the exact same feat.
It really reminds me of Roger Banister who broke that four minute mile in 19 54 and most people thought that that could never be done. But within a year, 24 other runners had broken the four minute mile. When someone sets that first precedent that something can be accomplished, others are soon to follow on quickly. And we see that in history over and over again in Cunard right here, he's starting to see this.
Other ships are powered across the ocean under strictly [00:45:00] coal. He really, once this Royal Mail contract, many of these new steamship companies, they're built up overnight and they were focused on speed and they were all trying to outdo the other company with bigger and fancier vessels. While this may have looked like a benefit on the surface, it really did them more harm than good
as a lot of these companies would go under due to unsafe ships that caught fire or they had crews and they would navigate them into treacherous situations and they would easily sink. Now for Cunard, remember he had a really solid reputation that snowball is massive now and it's rolling faster, and you can literally hear it from miles away, plus mix in his business relationships that he had cultivated over the years. And this puts him into a strong position here Upon arriving in London, he is very well surprised in that one of those [00:46:00] longstanding relationships with that of Sir Edward Perry is gonna bear a lot of fruit. You see, sir Edward had been promoted to the comptroller over the steam engine machinery and the packet service. And the packet service is a term that they use for mail delivery.
So right here we really see that Cunard, he has a super strong hand and he's gonna actually secure the contract with the Royal Mail Service to deliver the transatlantic mail, and they're gonna pay him 55,000 pounds a year for that service. Now at the same time, while he is in London, he's also working out deals to build his first four massive steamships.
In doing so, he's gonna secure a contract with a gentleman by the name of Robert Napier. He was one of the best marine engineers and all of Britain and he would agree to build each of the 960 ton ships [00:47:00] at a cost of 30,000 pounds each. Now at this point, Cunard,he has two legs of his stool. He has a ship builder and he has a contract. What is the third leg of the stool you might ask? That is a great question.
The third leg is funding to build the ships.
In order to get things off the ground. Cunard, he needed to raise capital as the contract. It didn't pay until services had been delivered. Thus, right here, he has to go all in to get the company off the ground.
So what he would do is he would form the British and North American Royal Male Steam packet company. That is a mouthful. That is a long company name. It would later become shortened down to just the Q Nard line. This is the one that's still in existence today more than 185 years later.
Under this company, he's gonna raise an initial capital of 270,000 [00:48:00] pounds. he would bring on some prominent businessmen, such as George Burns and brothers, David and Charles MacGyver, Q Nard himself would be the biggest contributor with 67,500 pounds. Then they would take on an additional 29 small backers for the company rounding out the funds that they needed. This gave him the third leg of the stool, thus building could commence of his first ship.
And in the book, the author describes Conard's accomplishments in the following way. this is a really nice summary. In fact, I almost use it for the show opening, And I just wanted to take a moment and share it here with you.
Samuel Ard had accomplished. What? No one on either side of the Atlantic Ocean had been able to do his eight months in England from January to August, 1839 had produced spectacular results During the space of that time, the quiet colonial from Halifax had found a builder and secured a contract for the construction of four.
Oceangoing [00:49:00] steamships Negotiated a mail contract with the British morality,and then brought the whole initiative together with a group of highly respected and influential businessmen previously unknown to him in the formation of the British and North American
Royal Mail steam packet company. CunCunards Quest for an ocean railway was finally within reach.
As things got started, Conard's gonna turnhis focus to the building and launching of these new steamships and would spend most of his time in London as described in the following selections of the book.
Cunard was in London throughout the winter and spring of 1840, so he could keep a close watch over the construction of the steamships. the ship upon whathe was most focused was of course the Britannia. The flagship
launched from Glasgow, Scotland on February 5th, 1840.
Britannia became the first anda long succession of liners that have proudly [00:50:00] boreand still bear the name Q Nard. the Britannia,
although built plain in accordance with Conard's wishes, was still a graceful vessel. It was 207 feet long, carried a beam of 34 feet and was bark rigged.
It was capable of carrying 600 tons of coal to feed the ship's. Three furnaces that would drive the ship along at a steady eight and a half knots among the 60 passengers. And 93 Crew was the founder, Samuel Cunard.
Okay.
Cunard traversed the Atlantic from Liverpool, England to Halifax, Nova Scotia under steam in just 12 and a half days
compared to the 12 or more weeks, a journey by sail could take, and it was making history with every passing moment in every nautical mile, The ship's, engines and machinery perform flawlessly driving the stout vessel, along through sometimes rough seas and against strong headwinds at a constant [00:51:00] speed of eight and a half knots.
Samuel Cunard lived his stream of providing the world with this first ocean railway,
as I read that, it just gives me goosebumps. Samuel, had a vision for an ocean railway that would provide safe, reliable, in a timely service to deliver the mail, and he accomplished this feat one step at a time, starting at the age of 10, observing his surroundings, learning from his father, going into business with him, buying and building his first ships.
He stayed connected to the front lines. He was always in the wharfs, in the warehouses, and on the ships, absorbing as much as he could. He built up his name in the community as a firefighter, a lighthouse builder, a noble merchant that was honest and fair. He was seen as a caring and loving husband and father to his children.
[00:52:00] As innovations took place around him, he was a witness to them and he was a deep thinker about how to integrate technology, starting small with the Royal William and scaling up with each successful iteration. built longstanding relationships in business with clear and concise communication, and he always adhered to his word.
He never burned bridges, and he built an army of allies on both sides of the ocean. The end result was that his vision became a reality, and for you and I, this is simply a brilliant playbook that we can learn from Q Nard, I hope that these lifelong lessons can make an impact in your business or your personal life and help you to grow your business or serve your customers even better.
Cunard, he is such a great teacher for us. More than 200 years later now past this point in the book, the Cunard Line, they're gonna continue to [00:53:00] grow and grow.
And his focus that of being on time just continues to compound it's really an unstoppable snowball at this point, and the results are going to be amazing. I just wanted to share a few passages with you so that you could get a sense of the impact that the QA line had on the world at this time.
I really liken this to the impact that the internet has had on our modern times here. Let me just read for you.
The impact Cunard and his first male ships had on the Intercontinental trade and commerce cannot be overstated during the decade of the 1840s. Following the advent of the Cunard service foreign trade in Boston, more than doubled by 1850 import duties collected in Boston had increased to $5 million annually, sometimes as high as a hundred thousand dollars on a single cargo ship.
CunCunards New steamship service. Quickly establish a [00:54:00] spear of goodwill between New England and Britain. arising, out of the direct contact and tremendous expansion in trade between the old and new worlds. the new feeling of friendship also extended to the United States and Canada.
In 1944, the American Congress passed an act authorizing the transmission duty free of goods from Europe via Boston to Canada. this came about in part through CunCunards representation in Washington and would lead to the reciprocity treaty of 1854. It and the role Cunard played in it helped establish a mutual confidence between the two countries that has remained ever since as a model of international friendliness and cooperation.
This really is a special time in history as two nations were brought together by the vision of Cunard, it's really a very special story in business history if you ask me. One that can only be [00:55:00] found through great books such as this one. The detail is so rich in the book, and I really hope that after listening to the show today, you can pick up a copy for your library at home.
And remember that I'm really just covering the high level details about what made Cunard so deeply driven and how he changed the world and the lessons that you and I can extract and apply in our own business lives. For Cunard, he would eventually move to Britain as most of his shareholders were located there and, and then most of his ships were also originated there, so this allowed him to oversee them as they were being built.
What he would do is he would tap his son Edward, to run the main terminus on the American side that was now located in New York, and then his other son William, would run operations out of Halifax.
On March 9th, 1859, Samuel Ard, he's gonna be given the title of Baronet by Queen Victoria, and [00:56:00] thereafter he would be known as Sir Samuel Ard. This was a result of his willingness to allow the British government to use his steamships during the Crimean War and the government. They were so extremely appreciative that they would reward him with his title as a result.
Samuel would continue to oversee the growth of the company until Olealmost his last days on Earth. The Steamline would pass away at the age of 77 at 6:00 PM on April 28th, 1865, with his sons William and Edward at his side.
He would be buried in Brompton Cemetery in Kensington. And just a big thanks to Samuel Cunard for leading by example, putting others first, and giving us a solid example Of what a high integrity founder and entrepreneur can accomplish over the course of a lifetime, especially with that of following your word in a strict focus of being [00:57:00] on time and showing us what can result from the compounding efforts.
just a deeply driven legend in business history.
With that, my friend, I would like to just take a few moments to cover the top lessons that you and I spoke about today on this episode. Just imagine how these might play into your business to add some value or make it stronger for those that you service. Just one idea or even a partial idea, can greatly change the trajectory of your business and where you're going and the things that you're doing.
The first lesson today was focus on quality. Samuel. He put a lot of time and attention into making sure that his ships were safe, durable, and reliable, and he was strict with time, and we saw the compounding benefits that this had for him over the duration of his lifetime. Start small, build something of high quality, then start to scale
[00:58:00] when we build high quality products and develop high quality services, this is gonna be noticed by others. Like what Henry Ford said, quality means doing it right when no one is looking. Control your quality. Like no one is looking so that when they do look, they'll be blown out of the water by your quality that you've put into your products and your services, and this is something that'll yield great results for us in the long run.
The second lesson today, we saw that early in Samuel's business career, he was buying ships at auction and building his own through this process, he learned who were the respected tradesmen in the industry, who was reliable and who was not. And he used this knowledge through his business career.
He only worked with those that had the highest skills and those that kept their word. And for you and I, we can do the exact same look for vendors in our industries that [00:59:00] have a solid reputation, seek 'em out, leverage their knowledge in theirabilities, let our partnerships flourish and deepen our relationships with those that you trust.
The third lesson today was around clear communication. Samuel wasn't an outspoken man, but when he did, he spoke directly and clearly. He was also a very strong writer and he believed in crisp communication and he didn't mix words. He was direct and he set expectations up front, and this earned him a great deal of respect in the business world.
We also spoke about Herb Kher at Southwest Airlines who believed in heavy communication with all of his employees so that they knew what was going on in the business and this bonded them together as a family. Sam Walton, he was the same way. He believed in over communication. If this approach worked for all three Sams in this [01:00:00] lesson, then it will absolutely work for us and our businesses. Emphasize communication, communication and more communications with your team.
Only good things will result out of this. The fourth lesson was around getting out and meeting people in person. It can be real easy just to rely on technology to make a phone call or do a video conference with someone and feel like that's good enough. 200 years ago when Cunard wanted to guarantee
that he could secure a contract with the East India company to transport store and sell tea. He got on a ship and he went to London to hammer out a deal. Along the way, he meets a lot of new contacts that would help him over the duration of his career year. And guess what? he won the contract at the same time.
His mode of travel was a hundred, maybe a thousand times harder than what we faced [01:01:00] today. Let this inspire us that we can spend a few days going out to meet others in our businesses and let this drive us forward. Put efforts into meeting new people, developing quality relationships, and cultivating existing ones.
The fifth lesson we saw today was about staying curious. Samuel Ard learned as much as he could about steamships. In the book, it says that he lost no opportunity to inquire about every particular aspect, and he took notes in detail. And he uses these learnings to help him build bigger steamships and make them more durable and more reliable.
Always keep an open-minded business. We never know when an opportunity might present itself for us to learn something new that can help propel us forward. Like Cunard, we must stay curious and always be learning.
The [01:02:00] sixth and final lesson here was about staying connected to the business. Cunard was constantly on his ships. He was working with, and he was learning from everyone. He didn't care about position. He wanted to learn from you, and we've seen this so many times on the podcast. We spoke about Samza Murray, who was constantly on the front lines.
He was working in the fields and in the warehouses, and he was on the banana ships. He felt that the only way to know what was going on in the business was to talk to those who were actually doing the work. same thing with Sam Walton, who was
constantly in his stores talking with and learning from associates and customers directly. The lesson, stay connected, my friend, always be in the business, lead by example, and set the pace for your teams and best yet,
know your business from A to [01:03:00] Z. Those are my top lessons from today. I sincerely hope that you really found some value in the episode today. And if you'd like to pick up a copy of the book, you can use a link in the show notes. And if you do that, that's gonna be helping to support children's literacy as I'm donating 100% of all affiliate earnings to help support that effort.
That's something that I really, really believe in.
It really has been a great pleasure for me to learn about the life of the Steam Lion Samuel Cunard outlining it for the episode today and sharing it with you my friend. I thank you very much for listening. It really does mean a great deal to me. It, I hope to see you back here soon. Until next time, make it a beautiful day in the neighborhood, my friend.