First Attempt to Launch the Great Eastern Navigation Company’s Steam-Ship “Leviathan”

Contemporary print showing the disastrous first launch of the S.S. Great Eastern – the largest ship in the world.

This skillful woodcut engraving was based on an illustration by Edwin Weedon and published in the November 14, 1857 issue of the Illustrated London News. It shows the steamship Leviathan, at the time the largest vessel in the world, on its blocks and ready to be launched into the River Thames. Teams of men stand by to hoist huge chains while crowds of spectators are shown on pleasure craft nearby.

The launch was a disaster, as the ship remained stranded on the rails and several men were injured, some fatally, in the attempt to get it loose. The setback exacerbated the financial woes of the owner, the Eastern Steam Navigation Company, and the ship was sold and renamed the Great Eastern the following year. According to the Royal Museums of Greenwich;

“The construction of the ship demonstrated the industrial potential that would soon revolutionize transport. Built for a passenger mail service linking Britain, India, China and Australia, she was intended to accommodate 4500 passengers and 6000 tons of cargo, or to convey up to 10,000 troops to a theatre of war. She was also designed to carry 12,000 tons of coal.

The ‘Illustrated London News’ described her as ‘a grand tribute to commerce’ and she was built in sections and encased in metal plates an inch thick. ‘Great Eastern’ was intended to be the greatest ship afloat and to demonstrate the power and superiority of the British nation, and was described during her construction as being ‘mistaken for a fortress’. She was 680 feet long, 83 feet in the beam and was five times the size of the largest ship then in existence.”

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