Robert Howlett in this feat of engineering. This project included the well-known portrait of the "Great Eastern"’s creator and engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, standing in front of the giant launching chains on the 'checking drum' braking mechanism at John Scott Russell’s Millwall shipyard. It was taken to celebrate the launch of the world’s largest steamship, in November 1857. This image, which depicts Brunel in an industrial setting instead of a more traditional background for a portrait, has been described as "one of the first examples of environmental portraiture". Howlett died in 1858, aged 27, at his home and studio at 10 Bedford
Maritime history of the United Kingdom was completed in 1994 and "Endeavour" undertook a voyage to Whitby where she stayed from 1997 to 2003. She is now at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. The SS "Great Britain" was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's second ship design, after a wooden paddle steamer called the SS "Great Western". She was the first steamship to make regular crossings of the Atlantic. This was the first large iron steamship and the first to use a screw propellor. After a long career she was abandoned in the Falkland Islands but was brought back to the drydock in Bristol in which she