Britain had always been at the forefront of shipping. Their dominance of the sea has been absolute since they destroyed the Spanish Armada in 1588. And ever since, they have been superior at naval architecture and battle. But they soon found that their military prowess translated to merchant shipping. And when steam power was discovered to be a reliable source of propulsion, Britain (really Isambard Kingdom Brunel) responded with the SS Great Western, the distant ancestor of the ocean liner. Brunel would continue to on to build three more steamships for his new line, the creatively named Great Western Steamship Company, the SS Great Britain, and the SS Great Eastern. this new line was expected to become a large and popular line among the populace. But, during the construction of the Great Eastern, the largest ship built by the line by far, Brunel died, and the Great Eastern turned out to be a financial disaster, which ultimately sealed the fate of the company. But, in 1840, a new line would take it's place as the premier form of Transatlantic travel, and go on to flourish for the next 180 years; the Cunard Line. 

Cunard began with the RMS Britannia, and continued to operate through the remainder of the 19th-century, but they really began to ramp up their operations at the dawn of the 20th-century, with the Lusitania, Mauritania, and several years later, the Aquitania. But in 1924 new immigration laws issued by the United States put an end to steerage and large scale immigrant travel, but in the process opened up a new market causing a shift in the industry; tourism. 

To take advantage of this new rise of Americans who wanted to take vacations/trips to Europe, all of the major lines began planning their next big ship(s), Britain would be no different. Cunard's next big ship would be huge, luxuriously appointed, and oddly enough, cater to the middle-class. The White Star Line also began planning their own super-liner.

So, up until this point, everything seems fine and dandy for the Transatlantic trade, doesn't it? Well that's about to change, 'cause it's 1929 and you know what it's time for? The Great Depression. The stock market in America crashed hard as prices plunged, and the world economy slammed the brakes. Banks began shutting down, and millions of jobs were lost. 

This hit the passenger service particularly hard, as suddenly nobody was traveling, and many of the rich millionaires who regularly traveled in first-class were financially destroyed. Companies like Cunard rapidly began accumulating dept as their ships' operating costs took their tole. Practically bleeding money, Cunard turned to the British government for help, as did the White Star Line. The government had a solution, but it was not a favorable one, as it would remove the competitive environment that had driven both companies to build many great ships, but it was their only chance to keep British shipping afloat. And so, on the 10th of May, 1934, Cunard and White Star merged.

With the forming of a new single company, the Cunard White Star Line, Cunard came out with the majority share in the company. As for their planned super-liners, only Cunard's hull no. 354 was able to continue construction after a loan was secured from the British government. White Star had already cancelled their plans for the new RMS Oceanic prier to the merger. The building of the ship would provide jobs for thousands, relieving some of the financial pressure on British families, so construction went ahead, and by the 26th of September, 1934, the Queen Mary was ready for launch.

We've already established that the Queen Mary was born out of a necessity to take advantage of a new market, but Britain was not the only one with big plans, and rivalry would come from a rather unexpected source... France. For most of it's existence, France's premier line, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT,) also commonly known as the French Line, had been well behind Britain in terms of the size and speed of their ships. Never in their history had they even held the Blue Riband. But in recent years they had upped their game wit the SS France (1912,) followed by the SS Paris and SS Île de France. And with the new market shift, CGT pulled out all the stops, creating a liner with Vladimir Yourkevitch's radical hull design (which Cunard had previously dismissed,) and gorgeous interiors; the SS Normandie. Worse, Normandie was as fast as the Queen Mary, and stole the Blue Riband on her first crossing! 

Britain had to recapture the Riband, and it was hoped that Queen Mary would be able to do so. She would need to rival the Normandie in both speed and prestige, and so when she set off on her maiden voyage, she traveled at top-speed most of the way, until she ran into fog on the final day of the voyage, and was forced to reduce speed. 

Queen Mary's traditional design was criticized, especially when compared to Normandie's sleek clipper bow and streamlined appearance. She was pretty much your standard Cunard liner, just jumbo-sized with a cruiser stern. But she did have some defining elements that set her apart, namely her interiors. Decorated in the Art-Deco style, her public spaces rivaled those of the Normandie, but were clad in wood, giving them a warmer feeling. Stylish, but not over the top rooms like this were popular among her passengers, as they were reminiscent of the interiors aboard older liners.

Her rivalry with SS Normandie would continue, but her slightly more conservative decor would make her vastly more popular with the general public. They would continue trading places as the Blue Riband-holder, until WWII broke out, and their rivalry would end.

During the conversion, Queen Mary was altered greatly. The interior decorations that once gave her an edge over her rival were removed; a total of 220 cases of china, crystal and silver, and 6 miles (10 km) of carpet, as well as tapestries and paintings, were taken from the ship to be stored in a warehouse until the war ended. Her wood-clad staterooms and public spaces were also covered with leather. Her superstructure, hull, and funnels were all painted in navy grey.

Her first act a troopship was to carry Australian and New Zealand from Sydney (were she had been converted,) to the UK. She would complete this task successfully, but it was not long before an accident would occur. On the 2nd of October, 1942, off the coast of Ireland, Queen Mary collided with one of her escorts, HMS Curacoa, slicing her in two. Out of the 338 on board, only 99 souls survived.

Overall though, Queen Mary's war career would go well, and her grey paint scheme combined with her ability to outrun almost any other craft earned her the nick-name "The grey Ghost." She would operate like this throughout the war, safely carrying as many as 15,000 troops at a time!

Soon after the war, Queen Mary would make her fastest Transatlantic crossing ever, returning to Southampton with a time of 3 days, 22 hours, and 42 minutes, with an average speed of 32 knots (59 km/h.) Between the September of 1946 to the July of 1947, Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service, with her cabin configuration upgraded to a capacity of 711 first-class passengers, 707 cabin-class passengers, and 577 tourist-class passengers. In the aftermath of the war, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth dominated the Transatlantic passenger service, as they had been intended to do since the day Queen Mary's keel was laid down at Clydebank. 

During this period though, several things happened in quick succession. In 1947, Cunard bought out White Star Line's shares in the company and the line reverted to just "Cunard Line," killing off the last remnants of the once great line that built the Titanic. Then, in 1952, after holding it for 14 years, Queen Mary lost the Blue Riband to the SS United States, on her maiden voyage. But soon an event occurred that would seal the fate of every liner, and many lines as well. In 1958, the first commercial transatlantic flights by jet aircraft began.