Editing Samuel Cunard (section)

==Adulthood and career==
During the [[War of 1812]], Cunard volunteered for service in the 2nd Battalion of the [[Halifax Regiment]] militia and rose to the rank of captain. He held many public offices, such as volunteer fireman and [[lighthouse]] commissioner, and maintained a reputation as not only a shrewd businessman, but also an honest and generous citizen.<ref name=jl/>

Cunard was a highly successful entrepreneur in Halifax shipping and one of a group of twelve individuals who dominated the affairs of Nova Scotia. He secured mail packet contracts and provided a fisheries patrol vessel for the province. Cunard diversified his family's timber and shipping business with investments in whaling, tea imports and coal mining, as well as the [[Halifax Banking Company]] and the [[Shubenacadie Canal]]. The whaling ships, sent far into the Southern Atlantic, seldom if ever turned a profit.<ref name=jl/> He purchased large amounts of land in [[Prince Edward Island]], at one point owning a seventh of the province, which involved him in the protracted disputes between tenants on the island and the absentee landlords who owned most of it.<ref>Boileau p. 94</ref><ref name=jl/>

===Steamships===
[[File:Statue of Samuel Cunard in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.jpg|thumb|A statue erected October 2006 of Sir Samuel Cunard in [[Halifax Regional Municipality|Halifax]], Nova Scotia.<ref name=jl/>]]
Cunard experimented with steam, cautiously at first, becoming a founding director of the Halifax Steamboat Company, which built the first steamship in Nova Scotia in 1830, the long-serving and successful [[Sir Charles Ogle|SS ''Sir Charles Ogle'']] for the [[Halifax–Dartmouth Ferry Service]].<ref name=jl/> The first steam boat had already been built by [[Aaron Manby]] in 1822.<ref name="erih"/> Cunard became president of the company in 1836 and arranged for steam power for their second ferry, ''Boxer'' in 1838.<ref>Boileau, p. 40</ref> Cunard led Halifax investors to combine with Quebec business in 1831 to build the pioneering ocean steamship {{SS|Royal William||2}} to run between Quebec and Halifax. Although ''Royal William'' ran into problems after losing an entire season due to [[cholera]] quarantines, Cunard learned valuable lessons about steamship operation. He commissioned a coastal steamship named ''Pochohontas'' in 1832 for mail service to Prince Edward Island and later purchased a larger steamship ''Cape Breton'' to expand the service.<ref>Boileau, pp. 49–50</ref>

Cunard's experience in steamship operation, with observations of the growing railway network in England, encouraged him to explore the creation of a Transatlantic fleet of steamships, which would cross the ocean as regularly as trains crossed land. He went to the United Kingdom seeking investors in 1837.  He set up a company with several other businessmen to bid for the rights to run a [[Transatlantic crossing|transatlantic]] mail service between the UK and North America. It was successful in its bid, the company later becoming [[Cunard|Cunard Steamships Limited]].    
   
In 1840 the company's first steamship, the {{RMS|Britannia||2}}, sailed from [[Liverpool]] to [[City of Halifax|Halifax]], Nova Scotia, and on to [[Boston, Massachusetts]], with Cunard and 63 other passengers on board, marking the beginning of regular passenger and cargo service. Establishing a long unblemished reputation for speed and safety, Cunard's company made ocean liners a success, in the face of many potential rivals who lost ships and fortunes. Cunard's ships proved successful, but their high costs saddled Cunard with heavy debts by 1842, and he had to flee to England from creditors in Halifax.<ref>Fox, p.104</ref> However, by 1843, Cunard ships were earning enough to pay off his debts and begin issuing modest but growing dividends. Cunard divided his time between Nova Scotia and England but increasingly left his Nova Scotian operations in the hands of his sons Edward and William, as business drew him to spend more time in London.<ref>Boileau, pp. 75–76</ref>

Cunard made a special trip to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1850, when his brother [[Joseph Cunard]]'s timber and shipping businesses in New Brunswick collapsed in a bankruptcy that threw as many as 1000 people out of work. Cunard took out loans and personally guaranteed all of his brother's debts in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Boston. Joseph Cunard moved to Liverpool, England where Samuel helped him re-establish his shipping interests.

===Personal views===
Cunard throughout his personal life was not a religious man and was considered by many to be agnostic. On his deathbed, Cunard declined [[last rites]] and declared he "did not feel and admit and believe."<ref>Fox, p. 55</ref> His views on slavery in the 19th century were not known, but his statements regarding [[Frederick Douglass]]'s segregated passage arranged by a Cunard Agent in Liverpool on one of his ocean liners in 1845 strongly suggests he was against any form of racial prejudice. "No one can regret more than I do the unpleasant circumstances surrounding Mr. Douglass's passage from Liverpool, but I can assure you that nothing of the kind will again take place on the steamships in which I am connected."<ref>Fox, p. 200</ref>  His views on race reflected those of Britons of the time, who regarded mistreatment of black people as a moral wrong, even though they still considered them to be socially and intellectually inferior to white people.{{Citation needed|date=September 2018}}