While Cunard's notoriety came from it's grand liners, Cunard maintained a modest fleet of cargo vessels. One such vessel was the MV Pavia, built by William Hamilton & Co of Port Glasgow, Scotland in 1953. It was followed by identical sisters Lycia in 1954 and Phyrgia in 1955. These three vessels operated on a number of routes during their tenure with Cunard. These routes included Liverpool - Boston, Liverpool - Montreal (sometimes operating to Toronto and Detroit). They also operated on Cunard's Mediterranean routes with ports of call in cities like Venice and Naples. Occasionally they called in New York but this was usually left to larger vessels.
As for the Pavia, she was sold to Seaswift Mar Co Ltd of Greece in 1965 and renamed the Toula N before be sold for scrap in 1974. The Pavia's sisters were also sold to other companies in 1965, the Lycia being scrapped in 1977 and the Phrygia being scrapped in 1976.
The Pavia is depicted here as she would have appeared in the late 50s and flying a Canadian courtesy flag indicating a destination in Canada.