The Great Eastern and Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Why anyone built a ship five times too big, and the brilliant engineer it killed.
The man
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), British engineer, is one of the great builders of the Victorian age. The name itself is wonderful: Isambard from his French father, Marc Isambard Brunel, an engineer who fled the French Revolution; Kingdom from his English mother, Sophia Kingdom.
What he built:
- The Thames Tunnel with his father, the first tunnel under a river in a city (opened 1843). Young Isambard nearly drowned when it flooded.
- The Great Western Railway, London to Bristol, with its viaducts, tunnels and stations.
- The Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol (designed by him, finished after his death).
- Three ships, each the biggest in the world in its time: the Great Western (1838), a wooden paddle steamer built to extend his railway across the Atlantic to New York; the Great Britain (1843), the first big iron, screw-propeller ocean liner; and the Great Eastern.
The famous photograph of Brunel, cigar in mouth, hat on, in front of the huge launching chains, was taken at the Great Eastern's yard.
The ship
The Great Eastern was about 692 feet long, nearly six times the size of any ship afloat by tonnage, designed for 4,000 passengers. She had both paddle wheels and a screw propeller, plus six masts for sails. No ship would beat her length until 1899.
Why build a ship that big? Who thought that was a good idea?
It was actually a logical idea, built on one problem: coal. In the 1850s the route from Britain to India and Australia went all the way around Africa, and there were few places to refuel. Steamers had to stop often or carry so much coal there was little room for cargo. Brunel's answer: a ship big enough to carry all the coal for a round trip to Australia without refueling, plus thousands of passengers. The size was the solution.
Then the world changed under her:
- The Suez Canal (1869) cut the route to India by thousands of miles, and coaling stations spread along it. A ship built for the long way around was suddenly unnecessary. And she was too big to fit through the canal anyway. See the Suez Canal.
- The launch was a disaster. She was built sideways to the Thames, because the river was too narrow to launch her lengthwise. In November 1857 she stuck on the slipway; it took about three months of hydraulic jacks and chains to push her in, in January 1858. The cost ruined the company.
- Brunel died with her. He collapsed with a stroke on her deck in September 1859, just before her first trial voyage. Days later an explosion on board blew off a funnel, and Brunel died on September 15, 1859, aged 53.
- She rolled badly, never carried full passenger loads and lost money on the Atlantic run.
Her real calling: laying cable
She found her purpose by accident. Only the Great Eastern could carry an entire transatlantic cable in one load. She laid the lasting 1866 cable (see the transatlantic cables) and more cables after that. She was scrapped in 1889–90; it took nearly two years to break her up.
Jules Verne sailed on her
In 1867 Jules Verne crossed the Atlantic on the Great Eastern to America, with his brother Paul. He turned the trip into a novel, A Floating City. See A Floating City.
Key facts
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859): Thames Tunnel, Great Western Railway, Clifton Suspension Bridge, three giant ships
- Great Eastern: about 692 feet, 4,000 passengers, paddles plus screw plus sails
- Built huge to carry coal for a nonstop trip to Australia
- The Suez Canal (1869) made her design obsolete, and she was too big for it
- Launched sideways, stuck for months (1857–58); Brunel died in 1859 just after her trials
- Found her calling laying the 1866 transatlantic cable