Cunard-White Star Line

Cunard White Star Line Limited

Industry	Transportation
Predecessor	White Star Line Cunard Line
Successor	Cunard Line
Founded	1934 (1934)
Defunct	1949 (1949)
Headquarters	Liverpool, United Kingdom
Area served	Transatlantic
Key people	Percy Bates (Chairman)
Owner	Cunard Line (62%) and White Star Line (38%)

Cunard White Star Line, Ltd., was a British shipping line which existed briefly between 1934 and 1949,^[1] It was created as an operating company to control the joint shipping assets of the Cunard Line and the White Star Line after both companies experienced financial difficulties. Cunard White Star controlled a total of twenty-five ships (with Cunard contributing fifteen ships and White Star ten). Both Cunard and White Star were in dire financial trouble, and were looking to complete enormous liners: White Star had Hull 844 – RMS Oceanic III – and Cunard had Hull 534, which would later become RMS Queen Mary.

Cunard shareholders owned 62% of the new company, Cunard White Star, while White Star shareholders owned the remaining 38%.

Being in a better financial and operating state than their White Star counterparts, Cunard Line shareholders began absorbing all White Star assets and as a result, most of the White Star Liners were quickly disposed of or sent to the breakers' yard. White Star's Australia and New Zealand service ships were donated to the Shaw, Savill & Ablion Line in 1934 with the Olympic being sent to Jarrow for breaking the following year along with Cunard's ageing Mauretania that was broken up at Rosyth. White Star's flagship Majestic, that had been the largest ship in the world until 1935, was sold in 1936.

Cunard White Star "Queen Mary" baggage tag

In 1947, Cunard shareholders acquired the 38% of Cunard White Star they didn't already own and in 1949 bought out the entire company, operating individually as the Cunard Line. However, both the Cunard and White Star house flags were flown on the company's liners at the time of the merger and thereafter. However, the Cunard flag was flown above the White Star flag, even on the last two original White Star Liners, RMS Georgic and RMS Britannic. Georgic was scrapped in 1956. Britannic made the final Liverpool–New York crossing of any White Star Liner from New York on 25 November 1960, and returned to Liverpool for the final time under her own power to the ship breakers and was the last White Star Liner in existence, this left the passenger tender SS Nomadic (which was also owned by the company until 1934) as the last White Star Line ship still afloat.

Despite this, all Cunard Line ships flew both the Cunard and White Star Line house flags on their masts until 1968. This was most likely because Nomadic remained in service with Cunard until this year, and was sent to the breakers' yard, only to be bought for use as a floating restaurant. After this, all remnants of the company were dissolved.

Cunard Line from that point on operated as a separate entity until 2005, when it was absorbed as a subsidiary into Carnival Corporation.

Nomadic which left White Star service in 1934 is undergoing restoration work in her city of birth, Belfast, in Northern Ireland. She and the Queen Mary are the only surviving Cunard White Star Line ships. Queen Mary is permanently berthed in Long Beach, California, as a hotel and tourist attraction.

Fleet

References