Today, Brunel is best remembered as one of the pioneers of the British Railway, the founder of the Great Western Railway. However, in the 1830s Brunel convinced a group to invest in a new shipping company that would extend the Great Western Railway across the ocean, thus running a line from London to New York. Soon after, Brunel began to design the SS Great Britain.
The SS Great Britain and Bristol Harbour
The ship which Brunel designed was bigger than any ship that had previously been attempted. He also decided to merge the new ideas of a steel hull and a screw propeller. It took four years to construct the SS Great Britain, however, even when finished it could not be launched. The SS Great Britain proved to be so large that she could not fit through the lock at the entrance of the Bristol Floating Harbour. It would take Brunel 18 months to get the lock disassembled so that the ship could sail.
The SS Great Britain finally launched in 1843 in a ceremony overseen by His Royal Highness, Prince Albert.
The History of the SS Great Britain
The SS Great Britain began life as a passenger steamer making the run to America. However, in 1846, the ship ran aground off the coast of Northern Ireland. It was nearly a year before the ship was rescued, and not long afterward the Great Western Shipping Company sold the ship. Thereafter it was used to convey people to Australia. It served in this capacity for nearly twenty-five years, although in this time it was also used as a troop transport during the Crimean War.
In 1881, the ship was sold again and heavily modified. The engines were removed to make room for more cargo and a more efficient set of sales was added. In this form, the ship spent five years carrying Welsh coal to the west coast of America. In the early 1886 the ship was badly damaged rounding the tip of South America and was abandoned in the Falklands. For 47 years, the ship was used as a floating warehouse until, in 1933, it was deemed unsafe even for that and was left to rot.
In 1970, a man named Ewan Corlett organized a rescued operation. The worn and decaying hull of the SS Great Britain was lifted onto a flat barge and slowly sailed back to England. Since then, the ship has returned to her original home in Bristol Harbour where she has been restored to function as a museum.
Source:
Brunel’s SS Great Britain: Guidebook, the SS Great Britain Trust, 2006
