SS Great Eastern SS Great Eastern SS "Great Eastern" was an iron sailing steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by J. Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, London. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling. Her length of was only surpassed in 1899 by the 17,274-gross-ton RMS "Oceanic", her gross tonnage of 18,915 was only surpassed in 1901 by the 21,035-gross-ton RMS "Celtic", and her 4,000-passenger capacity was surpassed in 1913 by
Marc Isambard Brunel over £17,000. Brunel was a talented mechanical engineer, and did much to develop sawmill machinery, undertaking contracts for the British Government at Chatham and Woolwich dockyards, building on his experience at the Portsmouth Block Mills. He built a sawmill at Battersea, London (burnt down in 1814 and rebuilt by 1816), which was designed to produce veneers, and he also designed sawmills for entrepreneurs. He also developed machinery for mass-producing soldiers' boots, but before this could reach full production, demand ceased due to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Brunel was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1814. In