Episode 1 of 2
Departure from Liverpool
- When
- 4 July 1840
- Where
- Liverpool, United Kingdom
RMS Britannia departed Liverpool on 4 July 1840, beginning the first steam transatlantic passenger mail service to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The ship, named Britannia, sailed on 4 July, a date with patriotic significance on both sides of the Atlantic. This departure marked the beginning of the company's operation on the Liverpool-Halifax-Boston route, following the formation of the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in May 1840.
Sources
- RMS Britannia Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-04
- Cunard Line Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-03
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.