by Rob Mundle
Great Britain was a vessel of mind-boggling proportions. Costing a staggering £117,000 to build (£47,000 over budget), she was the brainchild of English engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, a man recognised as one of the world’s greatest engineering geniuses, and a seminal figure of the Industrial Revolution. Such was his brilliance that wealthy men across England clamoured to back his schemes, so much so that by age twenty-nine, Brunel was estimated to be worth £5.3 million – more than £600 million today.
Brunel’s unique talents were visible in every facet of Great Britain, which at the time of her launch in July 1843 was dubbed ‘the greatest experiment since the Creation’. At 322 feet over all and weighing 1930 tons, she was by far the largest ship afloat from when she went into service in 1845 until 1854. As well as being the largest iron ship ever built at the time, she was the first passenger ship to be fitted with a screw propeller, a feature Brunel devised after originally planning for her to be a paddle wheeler. He also chose a unique 1000-horsepower steam engine for propulsion.
Great Britain’s maiden voyage in 1845, across the Atlantic from Liverpool to New York, was completed in an impressive fourteen days. History also recorded this as being the first passage across the Atlantic by an iron-hulled steamer.
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Before Great Britain went into service on the Atlantic run, Brunel’s ever-inquiring mind caused him to replace the ship’s six-bladed windmill-type propeller with a four-bladed design, which he further modified by adding an extension to the tip of each blade. Unfortunately, it was an idea that failed: on her second crossing of the Atlantic, Great Britain ran afoul of a storm that delivered conditions so rough that the propeller lost a number of its blades and one of the ship’s masts went crashing over the side.
Making matters worse for the owners, their colossal vessel held little appeal for trans-Atlantic travellers. There were only twenty-eight paying passengers on board – seventeen fewer than on her maiden voyage.
Still, the owners went ahead with a second season of Atlantic crossings in 1846 – but again, it would prove to be an ill-fated endeavour. After departing from Liverpool on his third round trip of the season, Great Britain’s captain, James Hosken, made a series of navigational blunders on the first night at sea and subsequently drove the ship hard aground in Dundrum Bay on Ireland’s east coast, just 110 nautical miles due west of Liverpool. It is thought that the captain was using outdated charts for navigation, and that he mistook St John’s Light on the Irish coast for the Calf Light on the Isle of Man, 30 miles closer to Liverpool. This led him to call for a change of course towards the coast – which could not be seen in the darkness – instead of towards the Atlantic Ocean. Soon afterwards, Great Britain steamed straight onto the beach at full speed. Conditions were apparently calm, and no one was reported to have been injured.
Brunel visited the site soon after the calamity occurred and saw that his beloved ship had grounded at a good rate of knots, as she was high and dry. He subsequently wrote of his feelings in a letter to a friend, Christopher Claxton, who had published a book about the ship in 1844:
I have returned from Dundrum with very mixed feelings of satisfaction and pain, almost amounting to anger, with whom I don’t know. I was delighted to find our fine ship almost as sound as the day she was launched, and ten times stronger in character. I was grieved to see her lying unprotected, deserted, and abandoned by all those who ought to know her value and ought to have protected her. The result, whoever is to blame, is that the finest ship in the world, in excellent condition such that £4,000 or £5,000 would repair all the damage done, has been left lying like a useless saucepan, kicking about on the most exposed shore you can imagine, with no more effort or skill applied to protect the property than the said saucepan would have received on the beach at Brighton.
It took almost a year of skilful planning and great effort to refloat Great Britain. Initially, to lighten the ship, all heavy items that could be dispensed with were either thrown from the deck or lowered onto the beach. After that, a huge pond was dug around the hull so that she could float on a high tide. When everything was in readiness and the tide at its peak, the ship was dragged off the beach then towed back to Liverpool.
The cost of the salvage – £34,000 – could not be covered by the financially strapped owners, the Great Western Steamship Company. The company declared bankruptcy and Great Britain was sold for just £25,000 to Gibbs, Bright & Co, who had acted as shipping agents for the previous owners.
The new owners had big plans for the ship. They saw her as perfectly suited to meeting the rapidly escalating demand from emigrants and gold seekers wanting to travel to Australia. Some modifications were made, the most important being the addition of a new accommodation deck so passenger numbers could be doubled to 730. Additionally, two of Great Britain’s six masts were dispensed with and a second funnel added.
Amid great fanfare, Great Britain sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to Melbourne and Sydney on 21 August 1852, with 630 passengers and a crew of 143 aboard. Obviously it was not known to the ship’s owners or the captain, Barnard Robert Mathews, that the clipper ship Marco Polo was, at that moment, only four weeks from reaching Melbourne and establishing an impressive record of just sixty-eight days for the passage from Liverpool.
Great Britain’s backers had visions of covering the 13,000 nautical miles in a remarkable sixty days, but that was not to be. They had badly miscalculated the amount of coal the steam engine would consume.
It was not until Great Britain had covered around 4500 nautical miles and was deep in the South Atlantic that this error was realised. The only solution was to turn back and sail almost 500 nautical miles north to St Helena Island, where coal was available. The voyage to Melbourne was extended by three weeks to a total of eighty-one days. It was a deviation that brought a riotous response from some passengers, because the delay was costing them valuable time and money. It was also rumoured that when Great Britain reached St Helena a number of the ship’s stokers from the boiler room stole a boat and jumped ship.
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Everyone travelling on Great Britain received a copy of the ‘Rules for Passengers’, laid down by the British Government, prior to departure. Among the most salient points were:
Every passenger to rise at 7am . . .
The Passengers to be in their beds at 10pm . . .
The Passengers, when dressed, to roll up their beds, to sweep the decks . . . and to throw the dirt overboard.
Breakfast not to commence till this is done.
The beds to be well shaken and aired on deck . . .
Mondays and Tuesdays are appointed as washing days, but no clothes on any account to be washed or dried between decks . . .
On Sunday the Passengers to muster at 10am, when they will be expected to appear in clean and decent apparel. The day to be observed as religiously as circumstances will permit . . .
All gambling, fighting, riotous behaviour or quarrelsome behaviour, swearing and violent language to be at once put a stop to. Swords and other offensive weapons, as soon as the passengers embark, to be placed in the custody of the Master.
No sailors to remain on the passenger deck among the passengers except on duty.
No passenger to go to the Ship’s Cookhouse without special permission from the Master nor to remain in the Forecastle among the sailors on any account.
There was much written by many of the 630 passengers on this voyage, and all gave interesting insights into life on board. It is evident passengers thought that paying some 33 per cent more to sail to Australia aboard Great Britain than on one of the smaller clipper ships would see them enjoy superior service, food and accommodation. But that was not always the case, as some diaries revealed.
The most common observation by passengers was the amount of livestock taken on board to provide fresh food for first-class travellers. Great Britain departed Liverpool with a virtual farm on her main deck. Housed there were 550 chickens, 250 ducks, 150 sheep, fifty-
five turkeys and geese, thirty pigs, two lambs, one ox and a milking cow and calf.
The boundaries of the class system were clearly defined on the ship. Those travelling second class were fed salted meat on most days, while the steerage-class passengers, who were located in horribly cramped quarters along the entire lower deck, more often than not had to cook their own meals in a tiny galley. Their usual fare consisted of ship’s biscuits, a porridge-like dish called gruel, and soup. Making their life even worse was the fact that quite often their travelling companions were rats and fleas.
One young steerage-class passenger, seventeen year old Glaswegian Allan Gilmour, described in his diary the accommodation they endured during the passage:
Our berths are pretty well ventilated, but very confined and dark. The State Room (as they please to call it) allotted to us holds four persons. The distance between our berths for the purpose of dressing is 2ft broad and 6ft long, so confined that only one can dress at once, and even in this small space we have to build [store] part of our luggage.
First-class passengers expected a form of behaviour consistent with what they experienced at home – in the words of historian Andrew Hassam in No Privacy for Writing: Shipboard Diaries 1852–1879 (1995), ‘modelled on a polite social gathering at an English country house, protected and predictable’. One diarist lamented that shipboard manners were not always present, especially when it came to ‘wishing good morning’ to others. Everything possible was done to enable the upper-class travellers to exist in a manner similar to what they were accustomed to: they were able to participate in activities like sketching, dancing and sewing, as well as lectures and concerts in the evenings.
The meals that these privileged few enjoyed were little different from those they would have eaten at home, most comprising up to twelve courses. One of the first-class passengers, J.M. Hardwick, made a diary entry on 26 August 1852 that outlined the menu for the main meal that day:
Dinner . . . was first rate, quite such as you would get at the best hotels: soup, grouse, pigeon and veal pies, pork, ham and other meat dishes, sundry puddings and tarts and jelly, blancmange, cheese, celery and after all, a dessert.
Dining in rough weather, for all classes of traveller, was a challenge: each time the ship lurched heavily in response to the power of a mighty wave there was every chance that the plate of food being consumed opposite you at one of the long bench tables would finish up in your lap.
Another passenger, Edward Towle, made special note of the cross-section of people aboard the ship:
There seems to be a great mixture of characters on board, men who had been gambling the night before now appeared at church with a most devotional demeanour, and others who appeared to be very steady and sedate never went to church at all . . . We have French, Germans, Poles, Jews, Italians, Scotch and Irish on board.
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When Great Britain entered Port Phillip on 12 November and made her way north to the anchorage at Hobson’s Bay, the word of her presence spread across Melbourne like wildfire. Her enormous size, and the fact that she was the first big steamship to enter the port, saw crowds cascade onto the bay’s beaches and headlands so they could catch sight of her.
Just fourteen months earlier, they had been in awe of the 184-foot clipper ship Marco Polo, after her first arrival on Australian shores. Now, here was a steamship-cum-clipper measuring 322 feet overall, and built from iron, not wood. The excitement about her presence in port was so great that more than 4000 people paid 1 shilling each to tour Great Britain while she was at anchor.
After leaving Melbourne and clearing Port Phillip Bay under the guidance of the local pilots, Great Britain was turned east into Bass Strait on a course that would take her to Sydney. This would be her only visit to the harbour city in all the voyages she made to Australia.
By April 1853, she was back in England and destined for another major refit based on the experiences of her inaugural voyage into the southern hemisphere. Her owners had decided that far greater emphasis should be placed on the ship’s sailing ability, so that she stood a better chance of reaching Melbourne before her cargo of coal was expended. Her coal-hungry engine was replaced by a more modern, more efficient and lighter model. Also, to minimise drag when under sail, a new propulsion system was fitted that allowed the drive shaft and propeller to be lifted above the water when not in use. And the ship’s forever-changing sail plan was modified yet again. She had been launched with six masts; now, the decision was for her to have only three, and they were to be increased in height so that her sail area was maximised and made more effective.
Great Britain’s second voyage to Australia left no doubt that the modifications had been worthwhile. She arrived in Melbourne on 15 October 1853 after having been at sea for just sixty-five days. Her best run of all came on the considerably longer return voyage from Melbourne around Cape Horn and back to Liverpool: an astonishing fifty-four days, the same time as her fastest outbound passage, which was recorded on her last ever voyage to the Antipodes, from London to Melbourne. During her career on this route her average ‘out and back’ was 120 days.
Her regular schedule to Australia was interrupted between 1854 and 1857, when she was chartered by the British Government to act as a troopship during the Crimean War. After moving 44,000 troops during that conflict, Great Britain was rebuilt then chartered by the government to rush two dragoon regiments to the 1857 Indian Mutiny.
On returning to the Australian run, Great Britain went on to complete a total of thirty-two return trips down under. There were many historic moments associated with these journeys. In 1861 the first English cricket team to tour Australia travelled on board. The players arrived in Melbourne on 24 December and returned home in March 1862. The popular novelist Anthony Trollope wrote one of his books, Lady Anna, while travelling to Melbourne. Another emigrant of note to come to Australia aboard Great Britain was police superintendent John Sadleir. He was aboard for the first ever voyage and went on to become famous for his role in the capture of the notorious Kelly Gang.
Great Britain was finally retired from the service to Australia in 1876. By that time she had transported some 16,000 migrants to the colonies. It has subsequently been estimated that half a million Australians today can trace their ancestry back to this particular ship. She now sits in her home port of Bristol, a museum ship visited by hundreds of thousands every year.
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Great Britain might have stolen Marco Polo’s honour in 1852 as the largest vessel to enter Port Phillip, but the lightning-fast clipper would soon have her chance at revenge against the upstart steamers.
It so happened that as Bully Forbes was preparing to skipper Marco Polo again on her second voyage to the Antipodes, a screw steamer, Antelope – owned by Liverpool’s Golden Line – was being readied to make the same trip. Confident in the superiority of steam technology, Antelope’s Captain Thompson publicly challenged Bully Forbes to a race to Melbourne and back.
When promoting Marco Polo’s forthcoming voyage, the Black Ball Line certainly took aim at their steamer competitors – no doubt with Antelope’s challenge in mind. The company posted this advertisement:
For passengers, parcels and specie [gold bullion and cash], having bullion safes, will be despatched early in February for Melbourne.
THE CELEBRATED CLIPPER SHIP ‘MARCO POLO.’
1625 tons register; 2500 tons burthen; has proved herself the fastest ship in the world, having just made the voyage to Melbourne and back, including detention there, in 5 months and 21 days, beating every other vessel, steamers included.
As a passenger ship she stands unrivalled and her commander’s ability and kindness to his passengers are well known.
As she goes out in ballast and is expected to make a very rapid passage, she offers a most favourable opportunity to shippers of specie.
Apply to James Baines & Co., Cook Street.
Before Marco Polo was towed away from Salthouse Dock and went to anchor in the Mersey so final
preparations could be implemented, a well-attended pre-departure déjeuner was staged on board to honour Forbes and his second-in-command, Charles McDonald. The tributes flowed to an extent that Forbes found embarrassing – still, when he took the floor, as reported in a Liverpool newspaper, he got straight to the point:
As regards his recent voyage, he had done his best and he could not say he would do the same again, but if he did it, he would do it in a shorter time. (Laughter). He was going a different way this time, a way that perhaps not many knew of, and the Antelope must keep her steam up or he would thrash her (referring to the challenge of a race round the world sent him by Captain Thompson, of the steamer Antelope). Captain Thompson only wanted to get outside Cape Clear and he could make a fair wind into a foul one. (Laughter.) That he [Forbes] would do his best for the interests of his employers and while the Black Ball Line had a flag flying or a coat to button, he would be there to button it.
Clearly, Forbes’s reference to going to Melbourne ‘a different way’ was merely a psychological ploy aimed at his rivals aboard Antelope. This contest was shaping up to be the first real comparison between sail and steam over the 13,000 nautical miles to Melbourne.
Accordingly, the Marco Polo-versus-Antelope encounter intrigued the public and the press not just in England but also in Australia. This was no better reflected than in a story reprinted from the Illustrated London News in Hobart’s Courier on 5 May 1853, under the headline ‘Steam to Australia – The Antelope and the Marco Polo – Screw v. Sail’. It referred to the existing shortcomings of steamships while painting an exciting picture about the pending challenge. It also provided its readership with a valuable appraisal of a ‘modern-day’ steamer:
Considerable disappointment has been experienced by the result hitherto of the experiments in steam navigation to the Antipodes. On both sides of the world a similar feeling has been expressed; and the extraordinarily rapid voyage out and home of the sailing-vessel Marco Polo has created among many nautical authorities a strong conviction that the latter class of craft may bid defiance to steam rivalry, at least of the kind hitherto attempted. The precise point involved in this question of rivalry is about to be tested in a race round the world, between the famous sailer we have just named and the scarcely less famous screw-steamer, the Antelope. The Antelope now competes for the belt with the great victor of the sailing ring, the Marco Polo, under circumstances that will render the test (at least, presumptively) determinative of the principle at stake. The Antelope is the property of the firm of Millars [sic – Millers] and Thompson, of Liverpool . . . so that it is quite superfluous to say that whatever capital could furnish, or skill suggest, has been applied with no less liberality than discrimination in rendering her perfect in every respect. Why she has been selected for this purpose by these gentlemen, in connection with their well-known ‘golden line’ of sailing vessels between Liverpool and Australia, seems to be her possession of every quality of excellence as a sea-boat . . .