An Old Lady At Last Come Home

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32359, 27 July 1970, Page 6

An Old Lady At Last Come Home

(N.Z.P A ■Reuter— Copyright) BRISTOL.

The *.*. Great Britain, once the pride of Victorlap Britain, has come “home” to port at Avonmouth—B4 year* after a gale crippled her off the notoriou* Cape Horn.

Once an Australian migrant ship, the world’s first iron-built liner arrived rusted, battered, and derelict but standing proudly on the floating pontoon which had brought her 9000 hazardous miles across the Atlantic. Thousands of people flocked to the coast to watch the return of the Great Britain from the Falkland Islands, her forlorn resting place since 1886.

When she was launched in 1843, the ship was the first ocean-going liner to be built of iron, and the first vessel fitted with a screw propeller.But ill luck pursued her from the outset.

Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort, missed hetbows when he threw the traditional bottle of champagne at the Bristol launching. Quickly he threw another but it burst on a group of dock workers. While her famous designer, Brunel, looked on, her 3270 tons slithered towards the lower dock and stuck. A tug boat crew struggled to free her, hauled her back into the basin, and closed the lock gates to save her from being left high and dry by the ebb tide.

Three years later, the Great Britain went aground off Ireland and it was up to

designer Brunel to get her floated and taken to Liverpool. After that, she was sold off cheaply for the Australian migrant trade.

In February, 1886, after another change of ownership, she sailed from Wales laden with coal, refitted as a sailing ship, her iron hull clothed in wood. .Near the Falkland Islands .a gale struck her. There she was abandoned. and used as a wool and coal store until 1933. Now, after many years of ignominious dereliction, the old lady of Bristol has at last come home.