‘Warts and all’: SS Great Britain museum reopens with ‘rounded’ history of ship

SS Great Britain docked at Bristol Dockyards. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

Berthed in a dry dock near Bristol city centre, the grand old ship SS Great Britain is billed as the vessel that changed the world.

But a new museum opening in one of the old dock buildings close to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s creation highlights that the ship did not always change the world for the better – and life for those who helped build it and travelled on it could be pretty miserable.