SS Great Britain Tourism

The SS Great Britain is a museum ship and former passenger steamship that was advanced for her time. She was the longest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Steamship Company's transatlantic service between Bristol and New York, the ship was innovative in using a screw propeller design. After a varied career, which included carrying emigrants to Australia, serving as a troop ship in the Crimean War, and becoming a warehouse and quarantine ship, the SS Great Britain eventually was scuttled in the Falkland Islands in 1937. In 1970, the vessel was salvaged and returned to the Bristol dry dock where she was built. Restored as a museum ship, she now sits in Great Western Dockyard in Bristol, UK, a testament to British maritime engineering and history. The ship is a popular attraction, giving visitors insight into 19th-century ship travel, Brunel's engineering, and the lives of the people who traveled and worked at sea.