Brunel Collection

Choose from 112 items in our Brunel Collection for your Wall Art and Photo Gifts

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern

View of the (proposed) western archway of the Thames Tunnel, London, c1831

$Great Eastern on the stocks at Millwall on the Thames, 1857. View from the stern, showing the vessel in John Scott Russells (1808-1882) yard. Double-hulled, of all iron construction, and powered by four steam engines driving both paddle wheels and screw propeller, the Great Eastern was intended for the passenger trade between Britain and Australia and India. After a few troubled passenger voyages she was sold for £ 25, 000, a fraction of the building cost of probably £ 500, 000, and converted to a cable laying ship. In this role she was used in laying the Atlantic Telegraph Cable in 1865-1866, and other similar projects. The Great Eastern was Isambard Kingdom Brunels (1806-1859) last great project. He collapsed on her deck on her launch in 1858 and died a few days later. From The Illustrated London News. (London, 7 November 1857)$

Great Eastern on the stocks at Millwall on the Thames, 1857

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, civil engineer, c1850s

SS Great Eastern, IK Brunels great steam ship, 1858

Valentia in 1857-1858 at the Time of the Laying of the Former Cable, 1865

Foilhummerum Bay, Valentia, from Cromwell Fort: The Caroline Laying the Earthwire on July

The Atmospheric Railway at Dawlish, 1847, (1945). Creator: Unknown

The Great Eastern, 1860: The Vessel leaving Southampton on her First Voyage, June 17, (1901)

$The Great Eastern, 1886. Isambard Kingdom Brunel proposed to the Eastern Steam Navigation Company the construction of a steamship five or six times the size of any then in use. It would use two forms of power: paddle-wheels and screw-engines. Constructed from iron at Millwall, London, between 1853 and 1858, the Great Eastern was the largest vessel afloat until she was broken up in 1888. Only in 1899 were her dimensions exceeded by the SS Oceanic. The Great Eastern was not a success as a passenger vessel and was sold for a fraction of her building cost. She was used as a cable-laying ship, most notably laying the Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1865-1866. Illustration from Cyclopaedia of Useful Arts, Mechanical and Chemical, Manufactures, Mining, and Engineering, by Charles Tomlinson, Volume I, (Jamess Virtue, London, 1886)$

The Great Eastern, 1886

$SS Great Eastern, 1859. Pictured at the port of Le Havre, France. Isambard Kingdom Brunel proposed to the Eastern Steam Navigation Company the construction of a steamship five or six times the size of any then in use. It would use two forms of power: paddle-wheels and screw-engines. Constructed from iron at Millwall, London, between 1853 and 1858, the Great Eastern was the largest vessel afloat until she was broken up in 1888. Only in 1899 were her dimensions exceeded by the SS Oceanic. The Great Eastern was not a success as a passenger vessel and was sold for a fraction of her building cost. She was used as a cable-laying ship, most notably laying the Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1865-1866$