History and Haunting of the SS Great BritainDesigned by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and built in Bristol, the SS Great Britain is said to be haunted by the spirit Captain Gray.
The SS Great Britain was built in Bristol and designed by the pioneering Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859); SS Great Britain was launched in 1843. At that time, she was the biggest ship on the planet, a state of the art luxurious vessel designed to carry 252 passengers across the Atlantic.
History of the SS Great Britain
The first voyages of the SS Great Britain were compromised using a chain of mishaps, and she attracted far fewer passengers than expected. This plunged the Great Western Shipping Company into a financial disaster. During her 2nd season, in 1846, she ran aground on the sands of Dundrum Bay on the north coast of Ireland, where she remained for nearly a year.
The cost of re-floating her exhausted the owner's depleted funds, and she was sold. In the early 1850s, her owners, deciding to capitalise on increasing emigration to Australia, commissioned an entire refit, after which she could carry over 700 passengers. When she made her first voyage to Melbourne in 1852, she brought about such a sensation to some locals that 4,000 folks paid a shilling each to go on board and admire her. For the following 24 years, and throughout 32 voyages, she carried 16,000 emigrants to Australia, gaining such a reputation for speed that she was once known as 'The Greyhound of the Seas'.
By the 1880s, her age was beginning to show, and she was transformed once more, this time to carry Welsh coal to San Francisco through Cape Horn. On her third voyage in 1886, she ran into bother rounding the Horn and was significantly damaged. Forced to be put into Port Stanley within the Falkland Islands, she was deemed too expensive to fix and was given over as a hulk for storing bales of wool. In 1937, she was towed out to sea, holed, and left to settle on the ocean bed.
The SS Great Britain Returns to Bristol
In the 1960s, it was decided that she would be brought back to Bristol. Raised from the water, she was patched up, and her final adventure started; on 5 July 1970, thousands lined the banks of the River Avon to welcome the SS Great Britain home. On 19 July - the 127th anniversary of her launch - she was eased into the dry dock at Great Western, where she had been built. She has now been lovingly restored, and even though she will never sail again, guests can step aboard this monument to Victorian ingenuity and experience its gripping historical past for themselves. While on board, they may make the acquaintance of one of the ghosts that roam what has been dubbed "The most haunted ship in Britain".
Haunting of the SS Great Britain
John Gray was the ship's longest-serving captain. He took charge of the vessel in 1854 and remained at the helm for 18 years. However, in the 1870s, he started suffering from kidney disease, which, in turn, led to depression. On a return journey from Australia in November 1872, he disappeared. A search of the ship revealed an open porthole in his cabin. However, there was no sign of the captain. It was assumed that he had committed suicide, even though some say that he unintentionally fell overboard, whilst others maintain that he was murdered for the gold that he stored in his cabin.
Nevertheless, the spirit of Captain Gray remains with his ship, and the ghostly sound of his hobnail boots striding through decks or ascending stairs has chilled the blood of several witnesses. It may have been his spectral legs that one lady noticed stroll through a door into the Captain's Stateroom and vanish.
Elsewhere, the shades of a Victorian woman and her child have been observed within the family cabin on the promenade deck. Those who enjoy a little light accompaniment to their ghostly experiences will have to listen out for spectral piano music that has been known to float around the saloon.
