Arguably the most famous steamship ever built, the Great Britain may be said to have spanned the entire history of the ocean liner. Designed by the visionary Isambard Kingsdon Brunel for his Great Western Steam Ship Company of Bristol, she fulfilled all his ambitions to set new standards on the North Atlantic passenger route and proved a remarkably successful vessel in every respect. The first ocean-going screw-powered passenger liner in the modern sense, she was also the first iron-hulled ship of any size and was, in fact, the largest vessel in the world (3,450 tons) when she was launched.

All this innovatin took time however, and even though work began on her in July 1839, she was not ready for sea until January 1845 by which time she had become an object of great public interest. The giant steamship cleared Liverpool for her maiden voyage to New York on 26 July 1845 and made the crossing in just under 15 days. Her luxurious appointment and consistent reliability made her a popular ship amongst the travelling public but, partly as the result of her failure to secure a government mail subsidy, her owners were beset by financial problems Great Britian was sold to Gibbs, Bright & Co. in 1850. They altered her extensively and after only one return passage to New York, She was put to work on their profitable Australia run which she continued to sail for the rest of her service life. Laid up in 1876 after completing thirty-two round trips, Gibbs, Bright sold her and, shortly afterwards, her engines were removed and she was converted to a full-rigged ship. Damaged rounding Cape Horn in 1884, she limped
into the Falkland Islands where she was deemed unseaworthy and relegated to a hulk until scuttled in 1937. The remarkable strength of her iron-hulled construction ensured her survival however, and in 1970 she was refloated and brought home to Bristol where she can still be viewed in the same dry-dock that built her.