Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/306

 until the whole fundus of the eye, in its healthy and in its morbid state, has been so minutely described and depicted as to be familiar to every medical student.

Cumming was a singularly modest and retiring man, a thoughtful and accurate observer; and had his life been prolonged he would no doubt have further developed his important discovery. He fell into ill health, and died at Limehouse in 1855, aged 33.

[Personal knowledge.]

 CUNARD, SAMUEL (1787–1865), shipowner, son of Abraham Cunard, merchant, of Philadelphia, by his wife, a daughter of Thomas Murphy, was probably born at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 21 Nov. 1787. He was for many years a merchant at Halifax, and the owner of whalers which went from Nova Scotia to the Pacific. In 1830 he contemplated the establishment of a mail service between England and America, his original plan, which he afterwards carried out, being to run steamers from Liverpool to Halifax, and thence to Boston in the United States. In 1838 he came to England, with an introduction from Sir James Melvill, of the India House, to Robert Napier of Glasgow, the eminent marine engineer. The result of an interview with Napier was that Cunard gave him an order for four steamships, each of 1,200 tons burden and 440-horse power. The project then assuming a proportion which was beyond the resources of a private individual, he joined with Mr. George Burns of Glasgow and Mr. David MacIver of Liverpool, and established in 1839 the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. The government on 4 May 1839 entered into a contract with Cunard for the conveyance of the mails between Liverpool and Halifax, Boston and Quebec, for seven years at 60,000l. per annum, stipulating at the same time that the ships should be of sufficient strength and capacity to be used as troopships in case of necessity, and to receive a fitting armament. The first voyage of this line across the Atlantic was made by the Britannia, which in the presence of an immense concourse of spectators left Liverpool on 4 July 1840, Cunard himself sailing in the vessel. She arrived at Boston in fourteen days and eight hours, where on 22 July he was entertained at a public banquet given to celebrate the establishment of steam postal communication between America and Great Britain. During the next seven years the service was conducted by six boats, but at the end of that time the government determined to have a weekly mail, and four more ships were added to the fleet. The first iron boat used in this service was the Persia, built by R. Napier & Son in 1855, which was not only the largest of the ships, but surpassed in speed all the other vessels. The success of the iron steamers was from the first undoubted, and in course of time it was found advisable to abandon paddles as the propelling power, and to rely entirely on the screw, and no paddle-wheel boats were built after 1862, when the China was the first large ship sent across the Atlantic with a screw movement. On 9 March 1859, in recognition of the services which he had rendered to this country by the establishment of the Cunard line of steamers, her majesty, upon the recommendation of Lord Palmerston, conferred a baronetcy on Cunard. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1846. He died at his residence, 26 Princes Gardens, Kensington, London, on 28 April 1865, and his personalty, on 27 May, was sworn under 350,000l. He married, in February 1815, Susan, daughter of William Duffus of Halifax, Nova Scotia. She died at Halifax on 28 Jan. 1828.

 CUNDY, THOMAS, the elder (1765–1825), architect and builder, eldest son of Peter Cundy of Restowrick House, St. Dennis, Cornwall, and Thomasine Wilcocks, his wife, was baptised at St. Dennis 18 Feb. 1765, and belonged to an ancient family, of which the main branch was long seated at Sandwich in Kent. Cundy left his home early, and after being apprenticed to a builder at Plymouth, at the age of twenty-one came to London to seek his fortune there. By his unremitting industry he overcame all difficulties, and establishing himself as an architect and builder in Ranelagh Street, Pimlico, secured extensive employment in that capacity in London and all parts of the country. At the age of twenty-eight he was employed as clerk of the works at Normanton Park, under Mr. S. P. Cockerell, upon whose retirement he was retained by Sir Gilbert Heathcote to complete the alterations in progress. He then commenced business as an architect and builder. He soon made a reputation for himself, and after being largely patronised by influential people, he was in 1821 appointed surveyor to Earl Grosvenor's London estates. Among the important buildings which Cundy either built or made extensive alterations in were Middleton Park and Osterley for the Earl of Jersey, Tottenham Park, Hawarden Castle, 