The Cunards were a Quaker family that originally came from Worcestershire, in Britain, but were forced to flee to Germany in the 17th century due to religious persecution, where they took the name Kunder.

[4][5] Abraham and Margaret had nine children, two girls and seven boys (William 1789–1823, Samuel 1787–1865, Edward 1798–1851, Joseph 1799–1865, John, Thomas and Henry).

He held many public offices, such as volunteer fireman and lighthouse commissioner, and maintained a reputation as not only a shrewd businessman, but also an honest and generous citizen.

[3] Cunard was a highly successful entrepreneur in Halifax shipping and one of a group of twelve individuals who dominated the affairs of Nova Scotia.

Cunard diversified his family's timber and shipping business with investments in whaling, tea imports and coal mining, as well as the Halifax Banking Company and the Shubenacadie Canal.

[8][3] Cunard experimented with steam, cautiously at first, becoming a founding director of the Halifax Steamboat Company, which built the first steamship in Nova Scotia in 1830, the long-serving and successful SS Sir Charles Ogle for the Halifax–Dartmouth Ferry Service.

Although Royal William ran into problems after losing an entire season due to cholera quarantines, Cunard learned valuable lessons about steamship operation.

He set up a company with several other businessmen to bid for the rights to run a transatlantic mail service between the UK and North America.

Establishing a long unblemished reputation for speed and safety, Cunard's company made ocean liners a success, in the face of many potential rivals who lost ships and fortunes.

"[13] His views on slavery in the 19th century were not known, but his statements regarding Frederick 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.

After his death and changes to the British mail contract, his partners in England dropped his Canadian service and it was 50 years before his ships returned to Canada.

At the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, a substantial portion of the second floor is dedicated to his life, the Cunard Line and its famous ships.