Her Majesty’s mails and dispatches

LONDON TIMES November 1838 — Steam vessels required for conveying Her Majesty’s Mails and Dispatches between England and Halifax, N.S., and also between England, Halifax and New York.  

When the Royal Mail Ship Britannia swung out of Coburg dock in Liverpool on 4 July 1840 she carried 115 first class passengers, 89 crew, 600 tons of coal, the Atlantic mail (no doubt bearing the new Penny Black stamps that had gone on sale just two months earlier on 6 May), chickens, a cow to provide fresh milk and three cats to keep down the rats (and protect the mail). You can read more about the Penny Black here.

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 20 April 1940 — The giant ships Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and Mauretania are symbolic of a year of immense significance to ocean travel and to the Cunard White Star Line, for it will be a hundred years on July 4 since the first regular steamship service across the Atlantic commenced. On that date in 1840 the Cunard paddle steamer Britannia left Liverpool for Boston, carrying passengers, mails, and cargo.

In this age of luxurious and speedy sea travel it is hard to understand the opposition which this venture aroused. Shipowners in England at that time generally agreed that it would be economically impossible for steamers to cross the Atlantic owing to their large coal consumption! Critics instanced the case of the British ship Sirius, the first steam-driven vessel to cross the Atlantic without the aid of sails. She made the voyage from London to New York via Queenstown, in 1838, and consumed her whole supply of coal and some of her spars as well. Her crew, convinced that to cross the Atlantic under steam alone was madness, threatened to mutiny. The captain, Lieutenant Richard Roberts, RN, succeeded in restoring order, although firearms had to be used.

Samuel Cunard (later Sir Samuel), who came to England from Halifax in 1839, was not influenced by popular opinion. He was certain that the steam-driven ship would in time become the sailing vessel of the sea, and made extensive plans for the future in Halifax. Cunard had been agent for the East India Company. When he came to England to interest others in his scheme to run steamships across the Atlantic, he was introduced by the London secretary of the East India Company to two Scotsmen, Mr George Bums of Glasgow, and Mr David McIvor of Liverpool.

These hard-headed Scots agreed with Cunard that the era of the steam-driven vessel was at hand. Together they agreed to form a steamship company which was known as the British and North American Royal Mail Packet Company. Burns’ influence and efforts were mainly instrumental in raising the money. The company entered into an agreement with the British Government to commence a fortnightly summer service and a monthly winter service across the Atlantic with paddle steamers. The ports were Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston. The agreement carried an annual initial subsidy of £81,000. Four steamers were built for the service. They were the Britannia, Acadia, Columbia, and Caledonia. The maiden voyage was accomplished in 14 days eight hours, with an average speed of 8 knots. This was the first time that the mails had been carried between England and America by steamship. ◈

The best way to catch a rat

I am happy to admit we seafurrers can’t always deal with the rodent problem on our own. But generally speaking in times past there was no extermination system that could go through a ship’s maze-like infrastructure and do as efficient a job as we could – and simultaneously take care of disposal. There’s certainly a time and place for mechanical devices such as traps and chemical warfare like poison or gas (fumigation). But it’s a numbers game – the numbers of rodents and the availability of crew to deal with the matter. There’s also the question of side effects and extra staffing – someone has to set the traps, place the baits and clean up afterwards. Wily rats get to know the traps of course and bypass the baits which basically puts the ball back in the seafurrers’ court. We are the one stop shop when it comes to pest control and disposal. ◈

Whiskipedia

Mail protection

Letters, mail bags, stamps, documents and parcels (perishable foodstuffs like pork pies and wedding cake were often sent through the mail) were all were fair game for mice and rats in the post office, the depot, in transit or the ship’s hold. “Postmen are very conscientious people, and every time a letter was nibbled or a parcel munched, they felt they had somehow failed to maintain the standards the public demanded for the safe transmission of their mail. Traps and poison worked only up to a point; the presence of a cat on the premises was always regarded as the ultimate deterrent,” says Russell Ash, editor of Dear Cats, The Post Office Letters. Cats were first officially appointed by the Post Office to catch rodents in September 1868. A series of internal letters filed away on the British Post Office Archives (Minute No: 88560: Cats: Subsistence Allowance) explains how the appointment was initially made.

You can read these letters and more in Dear Cats. ◈