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The 'Great Eastern' as a cable laying ship

Chapter Index

• Introduction
• Preparing the cable and ship
• Laying the Atlantic telegraph cable
• Impact of the trans-atlantic telegraph cable
• Demise of the 'Great Eastern'

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Introduction

The Great Eastern cable ship in 1869.

The Great Eastern was a giant steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59). When she was launched at Millwall in 1858 she was the largest ship in the world. Although the design of the Great Eastern was groundbreaking, Brunel's mighty vessel was considered a commercial failure as a passenger liner.

A piece of 19th-century telegraph cable.

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 to 1872 she laid four telegraph cables under the Atlantic, and others to link Bombay and Aden.

 

Chapter Index

• Introduction
• Preparing the cable and ship
• Laying the Atlantic telegraph cable
• Impact of the trans-atlantic telegraph cable
• Demise of the 'Great Eastern'

Send this story to a friend | Printer-friendly version | View this story in pictures

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Bombay




Telegraph





FIND OUT MORE

• The 'Great Eastern' as a passenger liner
• The 19th-century port
• The 'Great Eastern'
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel
• John Scott Russell
• Famous Thames ships
• The Great Eastern Quiz
• Ship Trumps

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