Cunard and the North Atlantic 1946–73

In purely historical terms this volume should end with the death of Sir Percy Bates in 1946. There was obviously a line of division between his administration of the Company’s affairs and that pursued by his successors. There was also the need to make the Company an efficient instrument in the rapidly changing environment of a post-war world; for Cunard, as never before, had to re-establish normal peacetime operations under abnormal conditions and subject to influences beyond traditional forms of control. History, however, cannot be put into a chronological strait jacket. Even at the peak of Cunard’s achievements during the war, the processes of change were such that the future course of the Company’s history was in one sense a matter of predetermination. In the last twenty years of the Company’s history as a parent firm, the relative decline in economic strength was beset by uncontrollable external pressures and overshadowed by the struggle to make passenger ships profitable in operation. For the first time in its history the Company was in a position of having to fight a losing battle in an endeavour to meet and overcome forces alien to the good management of shipping and its widespread interests. It is not easy to obtain a perspective of these events, partly because the magnitude of source material does not lend itself easily to concise terms of analysis and partly because the nearness of events involves personalities. It is