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| Picture No | 11939445 |
| Date | 1858 |
| Description | SS Great Eastern during launch 1858 |
| Details |
Launching of SS Great Eastern designed by Brunel. Early morning on a foggy rainy day, 3rd of November 1857, in Millwall, Isle of Dogs on the River Thames, London. A large proportion of inhabitants of London turned up to see the launch of the gigantic vessel, with music playing and flags flying people waited for hours and hours with crowds increasing to 100,000. By quarter past one Henrietta Hope! (daughter of a major fundraiser for the ship, Henry Thomas Hope) named the vessel 'Leviathan', but nothing happened the engines at each end of the yard begin to struggle and then drop of 6ft followed with a grinding crash in front of dazzled eyes, machinery trying to pull 12,000 tons back up, this disaster injuring workmen and killing two. An hour elapses and again they tried with one of the drawing-chains snapping, reluctantly Brunel gave the order to stop the operations. It took four more attempts to launch with no avail, two months later starting on 2nd January 1858, the launching operation started, an accident occurred, the gear for hauling the vessel sunk in the water so they had to slowly launch her in the rate of an inch in every five minutes day after day, with one problem after another, eventually launching on the 31 January 1858 naming the passenger and cargo vessel 'SS Great Eastern'.
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| Source | Photograph by Robert Howlett after engraving in 'The Illustrated Times', 16 January 1858, pages 60 -61 |
| Credit | Mary Evans Picture Library |
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