As the summer wore on, Scott Russell, faced with yet another fire at his yard, became more and more immersed in his financial uncertainties. And Brunel was totally consumed with giving life to his creation; transforming so many lifeless tons of iron and wood into the majestic shape of his inner vision. To this end he was always occupied, dealing with endless problems and finding endless solutions. He went to Haverfordwest in Wales to organise jetties where the Great Ship would take on coal. He found the man whom he felt had the necessary qualities and experience to captain his great ship: William Harrison. There were also detailed discussions to be had on the design of the engines. Brunel was soon worried to hear that Scott Russell was not fulfilling his contract. It had become apparent that the work on the hull was not commensurate with the amount of money Scott Russell had received. Scott Russell had in fact been paid the bulk of the money, but there was still a massive amount of work to do before the hull was anywhere near complete. Brunel slept only four hours a night and worked like a man possessed.
By late summer, Brunel was still trying to get information from Scott Russell that might affect plans for the launch of the ship. Again, he wrote requesting information from Scott Russell concerning the centre of gravity for the ship and, again, he felt the reply he received was too vague. Scott Russell meanwhile wrote with a request for more money – £37,673 to be precise. He argued that this sum was for extra work – alterations that Brunel had made to the original designs. This led to lengthy arguments and nurtured the growing distrust between the two men. Scott Russell did provide a launch date for March 1856 but infuriated Brunel by carelessly giving the wrong information on the tonnage of the vessel. Brunel was angry. ‘How the devil can you say you satisfied yourself at the weight of the ship,’ he wrote to Scott Russell in October 1855, ‘when the figures your clerk gave you are 1,000 tons less than I make it or than you made it a few months ago – for shame – if you are satisfied. I am sorry to give you more trouble but I think you will thank me for it – I wish you were my obedient servant, I should begin by a little flogging.’
By now, very little charm was wasted in dealings between the two men. Scott Russell replied with a request for more money needed to pay the banker, Martin’s Bank, who held his yard in mortgage. The Great Ship, it seemed, was eating money and he could not obtain credit from anywhere. He wrote again to Brunel insisting on regular payments, saying, ‘I fear I shall get into trouble unless we can see our way to a definite arrangement for the future. I am keeping an enormous establishment of people night and day. I either must have payment with certainty or reduce my number of hands.’ Trying to ease the strain on his finances, Scott Russell had taken orders for six other smaller ships, which he was building in the yard of the Great Ship, and on which the labour force was increasingly deployed. To add to Brunel’s disgust, the smaller craft in the yard were so placed that essential work on the Great Ship was made impossible. And still Scott Russell had not produced the information needed for the launch. Brunel wrote again on 2 December 1855, ‘I must beg you to let me have with the least possible delay the correct position of the centre of flotation at the 15’ draft line … I cannot stand any longer the anxiety I have felt ever since we commenced the ship as to her launching.’
Yet no information was forthcoming from Scott Russell. Whether Scott Russell was deliberately holding back the information Brunel required in the hope that he would be forced eventually into a cheaper uncontrolled launch is not known. Brunel defeated him; he managed to ascertain the centre of flotation and soon had plans prepared for the launching cradles and launch-ways. Scott Russell complained to the board, pointing out that the controlled launch had not been part of the original plan and that the additional cost he faced was prohibitive.
By January 1856, Brunel had finally had enough. He voiced his concerns to the board of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company, reporting that a ‘large deficiency’ in iron ‘appeared to exist’ at the yard which was difficult to understand as ‘I do not now believe that any mistake has been intentionally made or even intentionally overlooked … and have been assured … that none of the iron so imported was ever knowingly used for other purposes … I make the quantity in the yard about 1,400 tons but this would still leave 800 or 900 tons to be accounted for and I am totally at a loss to suggest even a probable explanation.’ To make his position absolutely clear, he went on to say,
I have great cause to complain of neglect or to say the least of it of inattention to my orders and remonstrances. My instructions even when repeated frequently and formally in writing are much disregarded … Mr Russell, I regret to say, no longer appears to attend either to my friendly representations and entreaties or to my own formal demands and my duty to the company compels me to state that I see no means of obtaining proper attention to the terms of the contract otherwise than by refusing to recommend the advance of any more money.
Dark clouds were gathering over the shipyard. If Scott Russell were eventually made bankrupt, the Great Ship might belong to the creditors. A crisis was reached when Martin’s, Scott Russell’s bankers, refused to honour his cheques. Scott Russell laid off the workers in the yard, saying he could no longer continue with the work. The board of Eastern Steam, on Brunel’s advice, seized the Great Ship, stating that Scott Russell had breached his contract. The creditors were informed, the accountants moved in, and work on the Great Ship came to a complete stop.
The board submitted a claim on Scott Russell’s estate citing breach of contract, only to find there was no estate left on which they could claim. Brunel had been unaware that Scott Russell had mortgaged his yard and that there were a number of creditors, Beale and Co., the iron manufacturer, being the largest. Apart from the mounting debt and the missing iron, it emerged that although only about a quarter of the work had been completed on the hull, Scott Russell had somehow been paid £292,295. The board of Eastern Steam and its worried shareholders now found themselves in the hands of Martin’s Bank, which had prior claims. After much difficult discussion the bank acknowledged that Eastern Steam had rights too, and agreed to renew the lease of the shipyard – but just until August 1857.
Brunel was understandably worried. ‘I feel a much heavier responsibility now thrown upon me than I ever intended to take upon myself,’ he wrote. He still had Hepworth and Dickson from Scott Russell’s establishment to work with, and, better still, Daniel Gooch, a colleague and old friend involved in his railway commissions, was approved as his assistant. Scott Russell, however, was humiliated. ‘I intend to be very cautious and to keep every string which it devolves on me to pull, tightly in my own hands,’ Brunel told him. ‘It would therefore be in the position of an assistant of mine – that I should propose to engage your services.’
The last two years had been immensely difficult for Brunel as he tried to bring his work of creative genius to fruition. The burden of organising such a vast project against such a fraught background was beginning to exact a price. He had taken liberties all his life with his strong constitution and robust health, ignoring warnings, winning glory and generally taking life at a gallop, but now the rumour spread that he was ill. With little over a year left in which to launch his Great Ship before the bank took control of the yard, Brunel was facing the supreme test of his entire career.
‘Where is man to go for a new sight?’ asked The Times in April 1857. ‘We think we can say. In the midst of that dreary region known as Millwall, where the atmosphere is tarry, and everything seems slimy and amphibious, where it is hard to say whether the land has been rescued from the water or the water encroached upon the land … a gigantic scheme is in progress, which if not an entire novelty, is at as near an approach to it as this generation is ever likely to witness.’ The excitement was tangible; with Brunel in complete charge work progressed so well that by June the ship was almost ready for launching. The Great Eastern had become the talk of Europe.