East End of London clearance. Industries associated with the sea developed throughout the East End, including rope making and shipbuilding. The former location of roperies can still be identified from their long straight, narrow profile in the modern streets, for instance Ropery Street near Mile End. Shipbuilding was important from the time when Henry VIII caused ships to be built at Rotherhithe as a part of his expansion of the Royal Navy. On 31 January 1858, the largest ship of that time, the SS Great Eastern, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was launched from the yard of Messrs Scott Russell & Co, of Millwall.
Marc Isambard Brunel Prince Albert visited. Although intended for horse-drawn traffic, the tunnel remained pedestrian only. In 1865 the East London Railway Company purchased the Thames Tunnel for £200,000 and four years later the first trains passed through it. Subsequently, the tunnel became part of the London Underground system, and remains in use today, as part of the East London Line of London Overground. The engine house in Rotherhithe was taken over by a charitable trust in 1975 and transformed into the Brunel Museum in 2006. After the completion of the Thames Tunnel, his greatest achievement, Brunel was in poor health. He never