Victorian Technology

Page 2 of 5

• 1. A powerful trading nation
• 2. Great pioneers
• 3. Booming railways
• 4. Communication revolution
• 5. Find out more
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Great pioneers

The designer of the Great Western was the brilliant young engineer of the Great Western Railway, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who had persuaded his directors that a transatlantic shipping line was the natural way to expand the services offered by their railway. Brunel's response to the challenge posed by his rivals was to design a bigger and better ship. In July 1839, the keel was laid in Bristol for a new 3270 ton iron super ship. Designed for speed and comfort, this was to be the most revolutionary steamship of the early Victorian period. Equipped with cabins and state rooms for 360 passengers and the largest and most lavish dining room afloat, and the first large ship to be screw-driven, the Great Britain set the standard for large liners for many decades to come. By 1853 the Great Britain, refitted to accommodate up to 630 passengers, was operating an efficient London to Australia service and continued to do so for nearly twenty years.

The success of the Great Britain encouraged Brunel and his backers to create one more ship. In 1854 work started at Millwallon the Thames in east London on the building of the Great Eastern. Designed to carry 4000 passengers and enough coal to sail to Australia without refuelling en route, the ship was 693 feet long, 120 feet wide and weighed over 18,900 tons. Nothing on this scale had ever been considered before, and when she was finally broken up in 1888, the Great Eastern was still the largest ship in the world. The records of scale set by the Great Eastern were only finally broken by the super liners of the Edwardian era, the Lusitania of 1907, the Titanic of 1912 and the Imperator of 1913. On the Great Eastern's maiden voyage in June 1860 the ship carried only 38 paying passengers.

'Scale and technical virtuosity were not enough and the smaller, simpler and faster ships of Samuel Cunard captured the traffic.'

This became a pattern and the ship never sailed with all berths filled. Scale and technical virtuosity were not enough and the smaller, simpler and faster ships of Samuel Cunard captured the traffic. Increasingly a white elephant, the Great Eastern came out of passenger service in 1863 and was chartered by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company to lay telegraph cables across the Atlantic and from India to Aden, a task for which her huge size and powerful engines made her eminently suitable.

From an early date the British government realised that the successful operation and maintenance of an expanding trade empire depended upon fast, regular and reliable steamship services, supported by coaling and supply stations scattered all over the world. The primary function of the Royal Navy in Victorian Britain was the protection of these trade routes and their supply bases. As a result, the government sponsored the development and maintenance of the routes and, increasingly, the cost of building the ships. In 1840 the Peninsular Company became the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with government contracts to operate services to Egypt, South Africa, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. In the process, as the Cunard name was becoming synonymous with the Atlantic so P&O developed its long term association with routes east of Suez.

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Published: 2001-09-01