The SS Great Britain — The Steamship that Took English Cricket to Australia

Pre-1850s sailing-ship voyages from England to Australia took 100-120 days and were too long for working professional cricketers. Steam-assisted clippers had cut the time to 70-80 days. The SS Great Britain's iron hull, screw propeller and capacious passenger accommodation made her the most suitable vessel for a touring party of fifteen.

Spiers and Pond's commercial gamble depended on getting the cricketers to Australia in time for a Christmas-period tour and home in time for the English summer. The Great Britain's schedule — October out, March back via Suez — was the only one that fitted.

The SS Great Britain, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and launched at Bristol in 1843, was the most advanced large vessel in the world at her launch — iron-hulled, screw-driven, and capable of crossing the Atlantic in 14 days. By the late 1850s, repurposed as an Australian emigrant ship, she was running scheduled passages between Liverpool and Melbourne. Her advertised time was about two months; her actual times varied between 56 and 75 days depending on weather and rigging. The Stephenson cricket tour party of twelve professionals and a pair of umpires sailed on Voyage 21, departing Liverpool on 19 October 1861 and arriving in Melbourne on 23 December — 66 days at sea. The team practised by rigging a net on deck and bowling at it under canvas; cricket bats and balls were stowed in the freight hold and brought up daily. The £150 fee each player received included a 70-guinea first-class passage. When the ship reached Sandridge pier on Christmas Eve she was greeted by an estimated crowd of 10,000. William Mudie's reported reaction — 'we expected a good reception, but nothing like this' — became part of the tour's mythology. Two years later George Parr's twelve sailed on the same ship for the second English tour, departing Liverpool on 16 October 1863 and arriving in Melbourne on Christmas Eve 1863. The pattern of October departure, two-month voyage, and Christmas-period arrival was set; it would shape every English tour to Australia until the introduction of the Suez Canal route in 1869.

The Great Britain continued in Australian service until 1881, after which she was used as a coal hulk in the Falklands and finally salvaged and restored at Bristol in 1970. She is now a museum ship in the Great Western Dockyard at Bristol, where her cricket-touring role is part of the permanent exhibition.