# Photographing the 'Great Eastern'



## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

Research Assistant Meredith More reveals the story behind Robert Howlett's iconic photographs of the 'Great Eastern', the famous steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. 

"Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 – 59) was a giant of Victorian engineering, famous for designing the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the Thames Tunnel, the Great Western Railway, and the _Great Eastern_ – by far the biggest ship ever built when it was launched in 1859. An iconic photograph taken by Robert Howlett (1831 – 58) captured Brunel in the midst of his latest project, while the _Great Eastern_ was under construction at John Scott Russell's shipyard at the Isle of Dogs, London. Immortalised in his stove-pipe hat in front of the ship's enormous launching chains, Brunel's confident stance and mud-splattered trousers portray him as a man of action, a hero at the forefront of the industrial age".






_Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern, by Robert Howlett, 1857, England, albumen print from wet collodion on glass negative. Museum no. PH.246-1979. Purchased, 1979. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London_






_Robert Howlett_






"Robert Howlett was also something of a pioneer, being one of the first men in the 1850s to make a living from the new art of photography. A partner at the Photography Institution on Bond Street and a regular exhibitor at the Photographic Society, his striking portrait of Brunel was one of the earliest examples of environmental portraiture – in which the subject is captured at home or at work. The portrait was one of a series of groundbreaking images by Howlett documenting the construction of the _Great Eastern_ between 1854 and 1858".
(Read More)


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## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

2016
"The photograph below shows the final resting place of pioneering photographer Robert Howlett - the man whose photograph of Isambard Kingdom Brunel is now one of the most famous images in history".

_"Howlett tragically died just one year later at the age of 27 and was not buried in London but in a quiet corner of Norfolk at his father's church of St Peter and St Paul, Wendling. At the time of his unexpected death he was at the peak of his career with commissions from Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Brunel amongst many others during his brief professional career._

"Howlett was described as being in the best of health, full of boundless enthusiasm with a great future ahead but lost his life as a result of a prolonged fever unrelated to his work, in the prime of his life. His father was the parish priest at this church and organized a large memorial to his son in December 1858. The 158 year old grave is showing its age and is now in need of a replacement base plus re-engraving of his name which is almost illegible".




"As you can see from the photograph, taken in 2015, it is in need of a great deal of attention though it has now been cleaned. Quotes have been obtained for the base to be replaced, any necessary restoration to be carried out and the inscription to be re- engraved. It is hoped that his restored grave can be rededicated next year".


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## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

2017

"The restoration of Robert Howlett's grave is complete.  Restorers lifted the memorial plinth on Tuesday 1st August and, after some remedial work beneath, installed a new bespoke concrete base.  The plinth was then lowered onto this solid base which replaced crumbling, unstable brickwork, and will support his Yorkstone memorial indefinitely".

_"On 3rd August the obscured text inscription was re engraved using skills authentic to 1858, bringing the grave back to its original condition"._

"This crowdfunded project has only been made possible by the generosity of people from all corners of the world, photographers, distant relatives and anonymous well wishers.  Howlett's grave will be re dedicated on 14th October in a unique ceremony celebrating this young man's short life".


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## Murrmurr (Jun 26, 2021)

_Isambard Kingdom Brunel _is an awesome name! I'm gonna see if I can find out where it came from.

Howlett looks like a mild-mannered geek in his photo. Shame he died so young.


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## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

Did you know?​
Isambard Kingdom Brunel has a memorable name. He is named after his mum and dad. His mum was Sophia Kingdom and his dad was Marc Isambard Brunel.
His dad was French so Brunel went to school in Paris, the capital city of France.
Brunel was known for wearing a tall top hat.


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## Murrmurr (Jun 26, 2021)

Meanderer said:


> Did you know?​
> Isambard Kingdom Brunel has a memorable name. He is named after his mum and dad. His mum was Sophia Kingdom and his dad was Marc Isambard Brunel.
> His dad was French so Brunel went to school in Paris, the capital city of France.
> Brunel was known for wearing a tall top hat.


Thanks!


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## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

Murrmurr said:


> Thanks!


"The name *Isambard* is a boy's name *meaning* "bright iron". *Isambard* is derived from Old German Isanbert, *meaning* "bright iron" or "famous iron". Its most famous bearer, rather fittingly, is the 19th century British civil engineer *Isambard* Kingdom Brunel, noted as one of the driving forces of the Industrial Revolution".


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## Murrmurr (Jun 26, 2021)

I like Isanbert, too. Bert for short.


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## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

*Brunel Museum*
*The Brunel Museum* will be open during *Open Garden Squares Weekend, 17 & 18 June *– do visit! The Museum is housed in the *Engine House* which was built by *Sir Marc and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel* as part of the *Thames Tunnel. *The garden is on top of the Rotherhithe shaft and home to the cocktail bar, _The Midnight Apothecary, _whose cocktails use flavourings grown in the garden.











_"This museum sits on The Thames tunnel in London. It was Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (a brilliant engineer) who managed to build the oldest underwater tunnel in the world. It took him and his men 18 years to complete this tunnel. You can enjoy a guided tour of the tunnel where an actor will show you how Brunel and his men constructed this tunnel more than 185 years ago and what problems they faced. You can also buy books which will tell you about the history of the tunnel and there is a café to serving you both English and Turkish food. The museum also hosts various events at regular intervals".




_
_The Hungerford Bridge seat at The Brunel Museum





The Royal Albert Bridge seat at The Brunel Museum_


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## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

Murrmurr said:


> Howlett looks like a mild-mannered geek in his photo. Shame he died so young.







Robert Howlett  1856​


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## Meanderer (Jun 26, 2021)

1882






_ 

"During one of her cable laying voyages in 1867, a French author named Jules Verne traveled on the Great Eastern. The voyage inspired him to write a novel called A Floating City which was set on board the huge vessel. And I have little doubt that Brunel’s staggering achievement, something almost too impossible to exist at that time, set Verne to contemplating what other technological marvels might soon be achieved by engineers. Perhaps there is even a little bit of the Great Eastern in the Nautilus of Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea written three years after his voyage"._


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

"On 8th September 1859, she set off for Weymouth in Dorset but disaster struck near Hastings. The stopcock on the water jacket around the forward funnel had been closed in error. Pressure built up and the funnel exploded, scalding the men working in the boiler room. Five men died from their injuries, another jumped overboard and died after becoming entangled with the paddles".

"Part of the damaged funnel was salvaged and re-used as a water filter by Weymouth Water Company until 2002. It is now on display at the SS _Great Britain_ museum in Bristol".





September 9, 1859: The forward funnel after the explosion off Hastings.
(More Pictures)


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

Coloured lithograph, 'The Great Eastern On The Stocks - as seen from the river' 1857.


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

Great Eastern (1854)   Brunell's ship used in 1865 to lay the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable (2500 miles).  

Shown here loading cable 





"From Sheerness to Valentia a group of figures on board the Great Eastern at the beginning of the Transatlantic cable laying voyage of 1865"  By Robert Charles Dudley (1826–1909)


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

Captain Halpin and his dog aboard the 'Great Eastern ...


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## horseless carriage (Jun 27, 2021)

Brunel gave us what might have been, a great opportunity, but investors spurned his idea. The Great Western Railway, seen in the photo crossing the river Tamar via The Royal Albert Bridge, was constructed to a seven feet gauge, actually it was seven feet and one quarter inch. Other railways being constructed had a four feet, eight and a half inch gauge. 

It was the money men that won the day, they understood the advantages of Brunel's gauge but they had their money tied up in the standard gauge. On Friday 20th May 1892 over 3,500 workers took up positions alongside the main railway line running from Exeter to Falmouth. They were due to spend the weekend moving one of the rails 2 feet 3 ½ inches closer to the other rail. This changed the track from ‘Broad Gauge’ to ‘Standard Gauge’.

The final broad gauge express train, known as the ‘Cornishman’ left Paddington Station at 10.15 on Friday morning. Once it had set off on its return journey the line was closed and the conversion work began. On Monday the first standard gauge ‘Cornishman’ travelled to Penzance. 171 miles of track – main line, branch lines and sidings – had been converted in a weekend. 

A weekend! Can you imagine that happening today?


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

Original blueprint of the Royal Albert bridge by Brunel


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

"A unique opportunity to walk across the track bed of the Royal Albert Bridge from Saltash Railway Station on Sunday, 12th July 2015 in celebration of the completion of a 6 year major refurbishment costing £20M. This iconic structure built in 1859 by the genius that was Mr Isambard Kingdom Brunel, still carries the only main line rail link into Cornwall. to the assistance of Network Rail and other organisations,   the Ashtorre Brunel Bridge committee and the Saltash Rail  Users’ Group are delighted to  provide a unique opportunity to walk across the track bed  of the Royal Albert Bridge (one way from Saltash Railway Station and return via the Tamar Road Bridge walkway) on Sunday, 12th July 2015. Not the best of weather with driving rain, blustery at times".


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## hollydolly (Jun 27, 2021)

Of course Brunel Being an English Engineer, and specifically southern.. we're surrounded by many of his structures.. 

I used to live almost right next (literally) to this statue of him.. in West London within the Brunel University..

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previous to that I lived right next door to the Brunel built.. Tamar bridge, in the Southwest of England which crosses from Plymouth to Cornwell...
 My house was  on the left of this bridge, and I'd often walk across it pushing my baby's pram  into Saltash fishing village in Cornwall( on the right  of the picture) .


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## Murrmurr (Jun 27, 2021)

Meanderer said:


> Captain Halpin and his dog aboard the 'Great Eastern ...


A stalwart looking pair.


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

_"The bow of the Great Eastern, illustration for A Floating City, adventure novel by Jules Verne (1828-1905), engraving after a drawing by Jules Descartes Ferat (born 1829), published by J Hetzel et Cie, 1873, Paris"._




​


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

"One of the 19th century's great technological achievements was to lay a telegraphic cable beneath the Atlantic, allowing messages to speed back and forth between North America and Europe in minutes, rather than ten or twelve days by steamer. An initially successful attempt in 1858, led by Cyrus W. Field and financed by the Atlantic Telegraph Company, failed after three weeks. Two working cables were finally laid in July and September 1866, the result of repeated efforts by the indefatigable Field, a cadre of engineers, technicians, and sailors, two groups of financial backers, and significant help from the British and United States navies. Dudley documented the process in a series of watercolors and oils, this example showing equipment on the deck of the Great Eastern in 1866. In 1892 Field donated art works by Dudley, commemorative medals, memorabilia, and specimens of cable to the Museum".


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

The Remarkable Captain Halpin
"What makes an eleven-year-old boy embark on a hazardous life at sea"?

"It wasn’t an unusual occurrence in the nineteenth century when poverty forced many children to work brutally long hours in conditions likely to corrupt body and soul. Many joined the merchant marine to escape the horrors of life ashore only to find that life afloat was just as bad".

"But poverty can’t be cited as the cause in the case of Robert Charles Halpin. His family weren’t rich, but they did enjoy a regular and more than adequate income. So we must draw the conclusion that Robert bade farewell to his native Wicklow town for one reason – he loved the sea".  (Read More)





Captain Robert Halpin

_"It was this 1866 voyage that pushed Halpin to celebrity status (real celebrity, not the blink-and-you-miss-it ‘Big Brother’ type), and that celebrity rested on two counts. First was his general control of the massive ship’s crew, and second, an act of heroism that gained him the respect of that crew. This incident involved a crewman sent aloft to untangle a rigging block. When high above the deck, he looked down and his nerve deserted him, he called for help. Halpin, instead of sending a rescuer after him, went to the stay to which the man clung, and began making a slow ascent, knowing that if the man panicked they would both be killed in a fall. He inched his way up under the sailor, put the man’s legs around his neck and, hand-over-hand, he made the slow decent". _


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## Meanderer (Jun 27, 2021)

Breaking Up

The 'Great Eastern' is cut up for salvage on a beach near Liverpool




"At the end of its days, in August 1888, having been used as a fairground and advertising hoarding, the fate of the _Great Eastern_ was sealed when it was sold for scrap. Deconstruction work on the ship started on 1 January 1889, on the banks of the Mersey. Taking the iron hull apart was a matter of brute force, and over the next two years men chiselled, levered and hammered its plates apart until there was nothing left".

"The destruction of the ship gave birth to the macabre legend that two skeletons, the remains of a riveter and his bash-boy, were found inside the sealed double bottomed hull. At the time it was thought that perhaps it had been the souls of these poor unfortunates that had cursed the great ship with so much bad luck".


*The Skeletons of the Great Eastern    *
Although no mention of the skeletons has turned up in news sources of the day, books (and modern web articles) are full of them. In particular, many give this same quote. It's from the 1953 book _The Great Iron Ship_, by James Dugan, all about the life of the _Great Eastern_. In his chapter on its demolition, Dugan wrote:

_"One day they were breaching a compartment in the inner shell on the port side, when a shriek went up that stopped all work and ran wildly through the port and country. One who hurried to New Ferry to see it was David Duff. He wrote me:_

_"They found a skeleton inside the ship's shell and the tank tops. It was the skeleton of the basher who was missing. Also the frame of the bash boy was found with him. And so there you are, sir, that is all I can tell you of the _Great Eastern_."_


"Sourced from Dugan, the text of Duff's letter has since been included in virtually every nonfiction book that mentions the _Great Eastern_. I find it in _The Golden Age of Steam_ (1967), _Circuits in the Sea_ (2004), _Seven Wonders of the Industrial World_ (2012), _The Mammoth Book of Unexplained Phenomena_ (2013), _The Leviathan_ (2019), and others".


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## Meanderer (Jun 28, 2021)

'Deserving of Wonder' – The triumphs of Brunel 




David White









"David White has been working as a professional photographer since 1988, regularly working with Marie Clare, as well as the Guardian, the Independent and Elle magazine. During this project, David “wanted to find out technically how Robert Howlett photographed Brunel in front of the Great Eastern… in 1857”.

"David produced a series of photographs of Brunel’s greatest engineering triumphs across the British Isles, using the same unique 19th century camera and lens combination as Robert Howlett used for the classic ‘chains’ shot of Brunel alongside the ss Great Eastern. The photographs were exhibited in the Central Library in Bristol, and received national media coverage".
(Read More)


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## Meanderer (Jun 29, 2021)

The Launch Site of Brunel's Great Eastern, Millwall, London

The open air mini museum of the launch site of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Leviathan the Great Eastern in 1858 at the former John Scott Russell Shipyard.


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## Meanderer (Jun 22, 2022)

The Great Eastern by Eliott-Chacoco on DeviantArt


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