Portcities UK

The Great Eastern under sail. © NMM

Although the design of the Great Eastern was groundbreaking, Brunel’s mighty vessel was considered a commercial failure as a passenger liner.

After being laid up in 1864, the Great Eastern was sold for £25,000 (the equivalent of about £1.3 million today), a fraction of its original cost, to a Greenwich-based cable-laying company. This next stage of her career was by far the most successful. From 1865 until 1872 she laid four telegraph cables under the Atlantic, and others to link Bombay and Aden.

By 1872, however, the Great Eastern had been made obsolete by purpose-built cable-laying ships. She ended her career as a floating billboard before being scrapped in 1888.

Building the Great Eastern. © NMM

The contract for building Brunel's Great Eastern went to John Scott Russell's yard at Millwall. It took several attempts over three months to launch the ship (sideways) so it could be towed to Deptford for fitting out.

After failing as a passenger liner, she was sold a Greenwich-based cable laying company: The Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (an amalgamation of Glass, Elliot & Co. and the India Rubber, Gutta Percha & Telegraph Cable Co.).

• 207 metres long (680 feet)
• 25 metres wide (83 feet)
• Weighed 22,352 tonnes
• Carried 4000 passengers in comfort or 10,000 troops squeezed together
• Had six masts called Monday to Saturday
• Had two paddle wheels 17 metres in diameter (56 feet)
• Had five large funnels 31 metres high (100 feet) and almost 2 metres wide (6 feet)
• Had six boilers which could produce 1600 horsepower = 120 times the power of a small car
• The propeller was made of cast iron and weighed 36.6 tonnes 
• Could travel at 14 knots = about 18 miles per hour