Icebergs and the SS Great Britain

The SS Great Britain encountered icebergs while at sea during some of her voyages. Diary entries written by passengers provided inspiration for the third act of Iron Island entitled ‘icefield’.

These are some of the passages from diaries: John Henry Chatterton – Voyage 11 Return “Whilst serving out the bread this morning we heard that there was an iceberg in sight. Got out my telescope and looked at it. It appeared to be about 6 or 7 miles off. The sun was shining brightly at the time, and it looked exceedingly pretty.” Charles Albert Chumley – Voyage 20 Return “…in the morning we were rather surprised to see 2 enormous icebergs which are very uncommon in this season, one was at some distance & could not be seen very distinctly except its shape and general appearance, but the was close on our port bow and certainly did present a most sublime appearance, it was covered with snow except where pinnacles of ice towered aloft & were too steep for snow to lie upon, it seemed slowly to turn round presenting new appearances every moment, this was of course partially caused by our moving on but it evidently was not steady, it was not more than a mile or two from us & could be seen most distinctly, as I was looking at it through a glass a large block slowly disengaged itself & rolled into the water with a tremendous splash, the whole block of the distance one must according to the sailors have been two miles long & the near one probably 2 miles & a half in circumference, the cold was intense while we were close to it & is even at this moment almost freezing my fingers, which circumstance added to the rolling of the ship makes this document rather illegible. We certainly had a most providential escape as steering 1 degree farther to the North would have sent us right against the ice ...” “No one who has not seen an iceberg can form an idea of the appearance of them, there was one which we were very close to, about 50 ft high, over which waves literally broke themselves till the whole thing appeared, when to sun shone, like a volcano of glass throwing out showers of diamonds (that I consider a very neat thing in description).”

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Watercolour, painted on card, by W. S. Rowland, 1874. It shows the Great Britain rounding Cape Horn and passing an iceberg. This was painted on board the Great Britain when Mr Rowland was a passenger in 1874.

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Article in 'The London Illustrated News', 12 November 1864. Reports on the passage of SS Great Britain around Cape Horn, noting the ship passed 212 icebergs in the space of three to four days in September. Also mentions that Captain Gray 'received from the passengers a gratifying testimonial of their esteem'. Includes illustration of the Great Britain at sea with massive icebergs in background.

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Engraving and article in The Illustrated Melbourne Post, 25 August 1865. Engraved illustration of the Great Britain at sea with massive icebergs in foreground and background on front page. Also includes article on page 125 reporting on how on 7th April the ship 'was completely surrounded by icebergs of immense size and of every conceivable shape'. The article goes onto print an extract from a letter by the Reverend Doctor Cairns, a passenger on the SS Great Britain, describing the icebergs.