Q. Were the bunks on this ship really that small?
A. The accommodation areas on board have been reconstructed using the best available evidence from plans and descriptions relating to different areas of the decks.
The First Class cabins date from the mid-1840s, and appear narrow. However, by 1852 the British Government’s Passenger Acts prescribed a minimum size for berths (six feet long by 18 inches wide) and for the amount of space which must be made available to passengers of any class.
The berths in Steerage date from the 1860s and all match these dimensions.
Q. What is the purpose of exposed timbers in the dry dock floor?
A. In some areas of the dry dock, the pressure of the water surrounding the dock walls and floor may have caused the floor to well upwards.
Wooden spreaders were probably installed in the 1840s to spread this load more evenly towards the footings of the vertical walls, and to prevent the floor from moving while the ship was being built.
Q. What is Steerage?
A. This term originally refers to the areas of a ship associated with the steering gear and the ropes that ran from this to the rudder – an area ill-designed for passenger accommodation.
Merchant ships must make as much profit as possible, however, and eventually these areas were pressed into use for accommodation in many emigrant vessels.
With cramped conditions and little ventilation, these areas were only deemed fit for the very cheapest tickets and naturally attracted the poorest passengers.
Over time ‘steerage’ has become a generic term for the poorest quality accommodation area in any part of the ship.
Q. Why was the wooden keel added soon after she was built?
A. The ship was known to roll heavily from the outset, exacerbating nausea in the crew and passengers in heavy weather. The additional keel helped to resist this rolling motion.
After the ship was sold following the Dundrum Bay disaster, she was refitted as an Australian emigrant ship and as part of these works, a wooden keel was fitted. This also had the effect of improving her handling when carrying more fuel and passengers for longer periods.
The keel dates from around 1852 and is of three part construction, pine sides surrounding a greenheart core.
It was also originally clad in zinc to prevent damage from ship worms (teredo navalis).
Judging by passenger diary reports, it may have had little effect on the rolling motion, but may have aided handling when the ship was under sail and the rudder became less efficient when the screw was stopped.
Q. Why does the ss Great Britain fly the white ensign?
A. The ss Great Britain is presented today dressed overall as a historic presentation of the launch of the ship on the 19th July 1843. This historical presentation is as accurate as it is possible to achieve, from her six-masted rig down to the flag that flies at her stern. The evidence for the appearance of the white ensign at her stern on the day of her floating out from the Great Western Dockyard is compelling:
The white ensign is very clearly seen flying from the ss Great Britain’s ensign staff on her launch day in a painting by the noted maritime artist Joseph Walter, and in a coloured but very naive illustration of her entering New York on her maiden visit. It is also specifically mentioned in the Illustrated London News of June 21 1845, where the author states that ‘On her several masts were hoisted the English White Ensign, and the American, French, Belgian and Russian colours.’
On the day of her launch, the ss Great Britain was attended by Prince Albert, so given that the Queens’ Consort and a military band were on board the ship on launch day, the white ensign was likely to have been seen as appropriate.
Prior to an Act of 1864, the Royal Navy regularly used all three colours of ensign, and the use of the white ensign on merchantmen like the ss Great Britain was not unusual. There are a number of examples of officially approved white ensign use on merchant ships, and many more without specific sanction. The 1864 act finally laid down the general rule of usage of red, white and blue ensigns respectively with which we are familiar today (and now the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 to which the ss Great Britain is not subject), abolishing the flying of the Red, White and Blue ensigns by Naval vessels, and finally reserving the white for the Royal Navy.
As historical evidence guides the authentic interpretation of the ship, logic dictates that the white ensign be flown at her stern today in just the same way that the ship interiors look the way they do because of evidence gleaned from original passenger diaries.
Q. How long is the ship?
A. The ship is 322 ft or 98.15m long.
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