Seven Wonders of the Industrial World 1. The Great Ship (1 of 19)

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World

Here we are gentlemen, we are at last able to commence work on The Great Eastern.
This is the true story of the greatest ship the world had ever seen.
The Great Eastern.
l have conceived her as a giant bridge.
A ship that bankrupted and ruined the men who built her.
l mean l've never built ships under such punitive financial arrangements.
Sending many to an early grave.
The Great Eastern was the final engineering triumph of that most brilliant of engineers lsambard Kingdom Brunel.
A monstrous creation that would consume him.
1 852, Brunel and his personal assistant William Jacomb are in London trying to raise finance for The Great Eastern.

l had the idea to build a ship that could circumnavigate the globe, and be big enough to carry coal for the entire journey.
A project of these ambitions is bound to raise eyebrows.
Oh l'd hope so, that's the general idea.
l would be very disappointed if they didn't.
My ship will be the largest moving man made object ever built.
A floating city, five times the size of any vessel that has sailed the ocean.
She will carry fifteen thousand tonnes of coal, it will require two hundred stokers working around the clock to feed her immense steam engine.
These engines will be higher than a four storey house and will harness the power equivalent of over eight thousand horses.
l have designed her to provide the ultimate in luxury.
Other ships can carry four hundred passengers, she will carry four thousand.
l want her to be the engineering marvel of the world, a Crystal Palace of the sea.