The British cruise ship: an illustrated history 1843-1945

Since Arthur Anderson invited William Makepeace Thackeray to take a cruise in 1844, and to write about it, British shipping lines have offered passage for no other reason than leisure on their vessels.

By the 1880s, passenger ships designed solely for cruising were being built and the cruise ships kept many a shipping line afl oat during the Depression years, whether offering booze cruises to nowhere for alcohol-starved Americans, or out of unlikely ports such as Immingham to Norway for the British middle classes.