P&O (The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company)
Founded 1837 – Defunct 2006

In 1834, a ship broker from London, and a sailor from the Shetland Islands, formed an association with Captain Richard Bourne,
a steamship owner from Dublin In 1837.

The trio won a contract and began transporting mail and passengers from England to the Iberian Peninsula,
founding the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company.
In 1840, the company merged with the Transatlantic Steam Ship Company and expanded their operations to the Orient.
It then became the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O).
In 1844, P&O expanded its passenger operations from transportation to include leisure cruising, operating sailings from
England to the Mediterranean - the first of their kind.
By the mid-1900s, passenger shipping for the purposes of transportation was threatened by the increasing affordability of air travel.
Consequently, in the 1970s, P&O dedicated its passenger operations entirely to leisure cruising and, in 1977,
relisted its passenger ships under the new subsidiary P&O Cruises.