Iconic museum dedicated to preserving Brunel’s pioneering steamship SS Great Britain changes its name to represent ‘diversity’
The iconic museum dedicated to preserving Brunel’s pioneering steamship SS Great Britain has changed its name in the name of ‘diversity’.
The shipboard maritime museum in Bristol has announced that it will drop the name SS Great Britain and rename itself ‘Bristol Shipyards’, following a 37 percent drop in visitor numbers since the Covid-19 outbreak.
The historical name will be used as a side note instead, as the museum will describe itself as the ‘home of the SS Great Britain’.
The revised version of the museum, which opens next month, will now be about the ship’s role in the British Empire and focus on themes of immigration and inclusion.
SS Great Britain was the world’s largest and fastest passenger ship from 1845 to 1853, designed by legendary Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
It was operating between Bristol and New York as part of the Great Western Steamship Company’s transatlantic service.
Andrew Edwards, chief executive of the SS Great Britain Trust, acknowledged that some would describe the name change as ‘woke’.
He added that many people think that the letter ‘SS’ in the ship’s name means ‘slave ship’, when in fact it is an abbreviation of the word ‘steamer’. The ship was built after the British abolished the slave trade.
Brunel’s iconic SS Great Britain museum will be renamed Bristol Dockyard for diversity after suffering a 37 per cent drop in visitors since Covid
CEO Andrew Edwards acknowledged some would call the change ‘woke’ as the revamped experience will focus on the ship’s role in the British Empire and the people of different races on board
The museum will now focus on human stories about ordinary people during the colonial period and will focus on the people of different races on the ship.
One of these is George Moses, a Jamaican ship’s cook, or James W Jones, a Barbadian musician and poet who traveled from Melbourne to Liverpool.
The revamped Australian episode will explore the ship’s role in transporting 15,885 immigrants from England and the First Nations cricket team.
On the colonial military side, exhibits will focus on SS Great Britain transporting troops in global conflicts such as the Crimean War of 1853-1856 and the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
Mr Edwards said the remarketing of the museum was to make it ‘cooler’ after Bristol was named Britain’s ‘coolest’ city.
He said that in order for the exhibition to be ‘relevant to the people around us, it also has to be cool’.
he said Guard: ‘Change is never easy. ‘You always find the resilient, but in shaping the vision I tried to consider where the city is and what the city is about.’
Mr Edwards added that he wanted to avoid ‘stereotyped ideas of what a maritime museum should look like’ and make it ‘more established in Bristol’.
There have been other incidents in Bristol involving the so-called ‘woke’ renaming of tourist attractions.
The statue of slave trader Edward Colston was torn down and thrown into the harbor during Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020.
A statue of slave trader Edward Colston was thrown into the harbor in Bristol during Black Lives Matter protests in June 2020, and Colston Hall was renamed Bristol Beacon.
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The city’s largest concert hall, formerly Colston Hall, was later renamed Bristol Beacon to avoid its association with the ‘toxic’ slave trader.
The renaming of SS Great Britain is part of a wider project to develop the site into a ‘cultural campus’ in the city across two shipyards; this aims to address issues related to heritage, sustainability and diversity.
This will be held to mark the ship’s 60th anniversary in 2030 after its return to Bristol following its rescue from the Falkland Islands in 1970.
