Today, our featured item on our online shop is this gorgeous commemorative medal marking the 1843 Launching of the SS Great Britain by Allen & Moore. This white medal is an extremely fine example bearing some darker toning and slight blistering on the highest point of obverse portrait as well as a few minor marks and hints of verdigris on the reverse.
Allen & Moore was a British manufacturer of medals. The company was formed in 1844 as a partnership between Joseph Moore and John Allen. They were both former apprentices of Thomas Halliday, the leading die-sinker in Birmingham in the first half of the nineteenth century, who trained most of the medal makers of the period.
The SS Great Britain was the longest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), for the Great Western Steamship Company's transatlantic service between Bristol and New York City. While other ships had been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, the SS Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship. She was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic Ocean, in 1845, in 14 days.
Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, the SS Great Britain, the former passenger ship is a visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors annually.
Reverse: Ship right, shell above and Union Jack below.
Lettering:
LENGTH 322 Ft BREADTH 50 Ft 6 DEPTH 32 Ft 6 In // 26 STATE ROOMS WITH 1 BED Eh 115 With 2 BEDS Eh
THE GREAT BRITAIN
BUILT BY THE GREAT WESTERN STEAM COMPY.
ALLEN & MOORE / BIRM.
TOTAL Wht OF IRON 1500Tns. 1000 HORSE POWER// LAUNCHED BY H.R.H. PRINCE ALBERT JULY 19.1843
Obverse: Conjoined busts left in a round frame, royal regalia above with oak and laurel wreath to the sides. Lettering: QUEEN VICTORIA & PR. ALBERT
