Brunel's friend Thomas Guppy, a Bristol engineer and business man who had been instrumental in establishing the Great Western Railway, took the practical step of bringing together the necessary partners to form the Great Western Steamship Company with a view to making this happen (Guppy was also a trustee of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and a valued colleague to Brunel).
Brunel's first shipbuilding project for the new company was the ss Great Western. The ship was built by the firm of William Patterson, a leading Bristol shipbuilder, with steam engines provided by Maudslay, Sons and Field in London. She was an oak-hulled paddle steamer and the first steamship to provide a regular trans-Atlantic service, heralding a new era of ocean going transport. The ship was launched in July 1837 from Wapping (now Prince's) Wharf and moved to London for fitting out. On her return trip to Bristol, fire broke out in the boiler room and Brunel was injured when he fell 18 feet (5.49 metres) to the flooded boiler room floor from a burning ladder. When the Great Western left Bristol on 8 April 1838 for her maiden voyage to New York, 50 of her original 57 paying passengers had cancelled as they considered her too risky a venture.
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