A rough cut salted paper print. A starboard quarter view of the passenger liner Great Britain (1844) dried out alongside the gas work’s Brandon Wharf at Canon’s Marsh, Bristol in the period April – May 1844 before the attempt to get through the inner lock into the Cumberland Basin.

Reverse has been annotated in pencil by Admiral Ballard in 1934: 'The Great Britain as a six master. (Very interesting) Compare with model in S Kensington Science Museum.'

It is not possible to attribute the original negative (P1CAL) to any individual photographer. Possibilities are William Henry Fox Talbot, the Reverend Calvert Jones or Nicolaas Henneman. Henneman started out as Talbot’s valet but took such an interest in photography that he printed much of Talbot’s work and also took his own photographs. The Reverend Calvert Jones worked independently but had very close ties with Talbot and over the years sold many of his negatives to Talbot so that they could be reproduced commercially.