The curious case of the seasickness 'cure' that hit the rocks

One of the strangest ships ever built was launched at a Hull shipyard in 1874.

It was the brainchild of Victorian inventor Henry Bessemer, who developed a process that would allow for the mass production of steel, later earning a knighthood.

He also held more than 120 patents for inventions, including military technology and printing postage stamps.

However, one of his biggest failures was the SS Bessemer, designed to stop passengers feeling seasick.

The key feature was a first-class cabin mounted on gimbals that was designed to swing back and forth supposedly cancelling out the actions of the waves.

Dr Robb Robinson, honorary research fellow at the University of Hull, described Bessemer as "one of those giant figures of the 19th Century".

"He was also reputedly a man who suffered very badly with seasickness," Dr Robinson said.

"And he felt that in the modern Victorian age it must be possible to be able to come up with an invention, a mechanical invention, that would reduce seasickness."

Bessemer raised £250,000 to build the 350ft (107m) long vessel and it was constructed at Earle's shipyard, located on the Humber Estuary at Victoria Dock.

Dr Robinson said the ship was plagued by a series of misfortunes.

"The first one was when it was caught by the tide in a storm and it ended up coming aground near Barton," he said.

"It was brought back without much damage."

After being fitted out and undergoing sea trials off Withernsea, it sailed down to the Thames in London before heading to Dover to become a cross-channel ferry.

Its first voyage to France, with a complement of the press and dignitaries, did not end well when one of the Bessemer's four paddle wheels was damaged.

The first crossing with paying passengers on 8 May 1875 was even worse after it crashed into a pier at Calais destroying part of the harbour.

Dr Robinson said the French authorities seized the ship until the bill for the damage was paid.

"The company realised they'd got a disaster on their hands and the company that had been formed to build it went into liquidation," he said.

Ironically, the much-vaunted anti-seasickness mechanism was never used in the two sailings.

The Bessemer was bought by an iron manufacturer and brought back to its home city where it was moored by Albert Dock as a tourist attraction, with visitors charged sixpence to tour the ship.

It also offered trips around the Yorkshire coast until a voyage on the Humber ended in another disaster when it became grounded on a sandbank off Grimsby.

Eventually, its new owner went bankrupt and it was towed to London where, in the early 1880s, it was broken up for scrap.

The cabin lived on as a billiard room in a stately home in Kent, until in another stroke of misfortune the house was destroyed in an air raid during World War Two.

Dr Robinson said that despite its apparent failure, the SS Bessemer had an important role in pioneering maritime technology.

"The legacy of the ship in terms of the future was that you should always look to try to alleviate the constant problems of seasickness," he said.

"If you think about modern ships, particularly cruise ships and the like, and stabilizers and all sorts of stuff have been used and tried at various times."

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