The Great Eastern was Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s crowning achievement. She would be the heaviest and longest ship for decades. She could sail around the world without refueling. She was designed to carry 4000 passengers. She was propelled by wind, side wheel paddles, and a screw propeller. She was an engineering marvel but a commercial flop. Perhaps her most famous voyage was laying down of the 2nd Atlantic telegraph cable.
Brunel knew her affectionately as the “Great Babe”. He died in 1859 shortly after her ill-fated maiden voyage, during which she was damaged by an explosion. After repairs, she plied for several years as a passenger liner between Britain and North America before being converted to a cable-laying ship and laying the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.[4] Finishing her life as a floating music hall and advertising hoarding (for the department store Lewis’s) in Liverpool, she was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern