Zerah Colburn (locomotive designer) to England to take up a job as editor of "The Engineer", Britain’s leading weekly technical journal. In this position, Colburn made friends with members of the Institutions of Civil and Mechanical Engineers and became a member of both. He gave frequent lectures and contributed at meetings. It is almost certain that while in London Colburn met Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In 1860, Colburn returned to America on the maiden voyage of the "Great Eastern", Brunel's leviathan steamship. In America he launched a new weekly engineering newspaper, "The Engineer", but this lasted only a few months and Colburn returned to England
Francis Pettit Smith for propelling vessels by means of a screw revolving beneath the water at the stern. After securing the financial backing of several parties, he helped organize the Propeller Steamship Company which in 1839 built the world's first successful screw-propelled steamship, . A short time later, he was instrumental in persuading Isambard Kingdom Brunel to change the design of the SS "Great Britain" from paddle to screw propulsion, by lending Brunel the "Archimedes" for several months. He also helped persuade the British Admiralty to adopt screw propulsion. Between 1864 and 1870 he resided in an elegant Victorian house at 17 Sydenham