Timber from SS GREAT BRITAIN
Date1839-1970
Object number00055550
NameLetter opener
MediumWood
DimensionsOverall: 255 × 31 × 7 mm, 23 g
ClassificationsCommemorative artefacts
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection Gift from Julie Percival
DescriptionThis wooden letter opener made of timber from SS GREAT BRITAIN belonged to Harold Gregory Percival OBE, who served in the RAN during World War II on a Fairmile ship. It was common for relics or timbers from deteriorating ships to be fashioned into souvenirs and sold to fund the vessel's ongoing maintenance or restoration.HistoryThe keel of the wrought iron steamship GREAT BRITAIN was laid in Bristol in 1839 - a revolutionary design from the revolutionary architect and engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
With its hull plated with 6 ft x 3 ft sections each rivetted and overlapped in clinker fashion and six masts to carry sail, the GREAT BRITAIN was powered by two double-acting twin cylinders driving a fore and aft six-bladed propeller. At 322 feet in length it could originally carry up to 360 passengers and 130 crew plus 1,200 tons of cargo and 20 days worth of coal.
The ship was launched by Prince Albert in July 1843 although it stuck in the narrow dry dock which had to be partially destroyed to get it free. Its first sea voyage for its owners The Great Western Railway Company was to London to be fitted with engines in December 1844. From this point on it became a trans-Atlantic passenger liner travelling between the UK and New York until 1847 when repairs and modifications were made after a serious grounding.
Sold to Gibbs, Bright & Co of Liverpool the ship carried gold prospectors and immigrants to Australia from 1852 to 1876 - more than 30 voyages were undertaken with more than 16,000 emigrants. The GREAT BRITAIN also served as a troopship in 1854 to the Crimea and India carrying 1,650 men and 30 horses.
Put up for sale in 1876 it became a cargo carrier taking coal to San Francisco and returning with a cargo of wheat - via Cape Horn. Suffering hurricane damage off the Cape in 1886 the ship pulled into the Falkland Islands for repairs. But these proved too expensive and not viable so the GREAT BRITAIN was condemned and spent until 1933 as a hulk for storing wool bales.
In 1937 it was towed to Sparrow Cove and scuttled. But the ship refused to die. In 1968 a trust was established to bring it home to Bristol and on 19 July 1970 the GREAT BRITAIN triumphantly arrived back in the Great Western Dry Dock where it had been launched 127 years earlier.SignificanceThis souvenir letter opener provides a tangible link to the historic steamship GREAT BRITAIN, which was one of the largest passenger ships in the world in the mid-19th century and carried thousands of immigrants to Australia from 1852 to 1881.
