Personal Life
In 1859 Cunard was created a baronet by Queen Victoria.
He was married to Susan, daughter of William Duffus (on 4 February 1815; she died 23 January 1828) by whom he had nine children. He was succeeded in the business and in the baronetcy by his son Sir Edward Cunard, 2nd baronet. Sir Samuel was the grandfather-in-law of the society hostess Emerald, Lady Cunard (wife of the third baronet), and the great-grandfather of Nancy Cunard.
William Cunard, second son of Sir Samuel Cunard, married Laura Charlotte Haliburton, daughter of author and politician Thomas Chandler Haliburton. The couple had three sons and one daughter.
Cunard throughout his personal life was not a religious man and was considered by many to be agnostic. His views on slavery in the 19th century were not known but his statements regarding Fredrick Douglass's segregated passage arranged by a Cunard Agent in Liverpool on one of his ocean liners in 1845 strongly suggests he was against any form of racial prejudice. "No one can regret more than I do the unpleasant circumstances surrounding Mr. Douglass's passage from Liverpool, but I can assure you that nothing of the kind will again take place on the steamships in which I am connected." His views on race reflected those of those Britons of the time who regarded mistreatment of the Negro as a moral wrong even though Negros were still considered to be socially and intellectually inferior to Caucasian people.
Sir Samuel Cunard died at Kensington and is buried there in Brompton Cemetery.
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