The collection, which goes back to the 1840s, includes sketches, photographs, letters and diary notes documenting the lives of successive generations of the Coles family - in particular, the life of Samuel Halstaff Coles, author of the earliest of these documents, who first travelled on the ss Great Britain between Melbourne and Liverpool in 1865.

The ss Great Britain Trust first became aware of their existence when John and Ruth Coles celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on board ship and mentioned the family connection to the ship’s steward Bob Evans.

Among the curatorial gems are an 1865 poster advertising passages on board the ss Great Britain, and a 1922 photograph showing Samuel Halstaff Coles along with three generations of his descendants. The youngest sitter in the photograph is Samuel’s great-grandson John.

Samuel visited his family in England during the summer of 1865, along with his Australian-born son Halstaff. He left the rest of his young family in Melbourne, and the archive includes several long letters to his wife, Eliza, giving news about relatives and friends. Samuel was a popular and respected lay preacher in the Plymouth Brethren, a non-Conformist sect. He preached regular sermons on board the ss Great Britain – all carefully recorded in notes. They give a fascinating insight into the way many Victorian travellers understood emigration, as an experience that could be morally as well as physically testing.

Elsewhere Samuel tells of passengers dancing Scottish reels on deck to the sound of a bagpipe, and the burial at sea of a child. He also wrote about the ship’s captain, John Gray, describing him as ‘an admirable commander… he carried sunshine through the ship’.

Samuel Halstaff Coles made four voyages between England and Australia in 10 years, and eventually returned to England, settling in Nottingham.

The ship’s steward Bob Evans mentioned the link to the professional curators at the ship, who decided to investigate further. The result was a major discovery for the Trust, which never previously had contact with the Coles or even knew of the existence of their family collection.

The ss Great Britain Trust’s Curator Christian Redford said: “This is a unique and thrilling find. We have never come across a single collection of papers which tell us so much about a passenger’s life or motives for travelling.

“They show us how mobile people became once Brunel’s ideas changed the way ships were built, making sea travel relatively fast and reliable. It is hard to image in these days of 24-hour flights to Australia, but the ss Great Britain’s typical 60-day journey was half the travel time of most sailing ships.”
 
John and Ruth Coles have kindly agreed to let the ss Great Britain Trust copy the documents written by his great-grandfather.

The ss Great Britain Trust plans to make digitised documents, like the Coles’s family papers, available to researchers as part of the Brunel Institute, a new archive and study centre for Bristol, scheduled to open in late 2009 or early 2010. This will be a major educational and research resource for all those interested in Brunel, the technology and conservation of steam ships, and the history of 19th century sea travel.

Mr Coles said: “Having visited the ss Great Britain on several occasions since the hulk was brought back from the Falkland Islands, I have been most impressed by the huge restoration works carried out. I am very pleased that the Trust has been able to use our family papers to help portray life on board the ship.”

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