Cunard-White Star Line

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 during the Great Depression. Cunard White Star controlled a total of twenty-five large ocean liners (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 – RMMV Oceanic – and Cunard had Hull 534, which would later become RMS Queen Mary. Cunard owned 62% of the new company, while White Star owned the remaining 38%.

Being in a better financial and operating state than White Star, Cunard Line began absorbing all White Star assets and as a result, most of the White Star Liners were quickly disposed of or sent to the shipbreakers. White Star's Australia and New Zealand service ships were transferred to the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line in 1934 with the RMS Olympic being retired and for scrapping the following year along with Cunard's RMS Mauretania. White Star's flagship RMS 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 acquired the 38% of Cunard White Star it 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 with the White Star flag, on the last two White Star Liners, MV Georgic and MV 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. She 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 4 November 1968. After this, all remnants of the company were dissolved and the White Star name was removed from Cunard. The Cunard Line from that point on operated as a separate entity until 2005, when it was absorbed as a subsidiary into Carnival Corporation.

• Cunard White Star History and Ephemera GG Archives