page_title: George Forrester and Company
section_title: Marine engines
hierarchical_section_title: George Forrester and Company / History / Marine engines
caption_attribution_description: English: A photograph of a painting by Samuel Walters
context_page_description: George Forrester and Company was a British marine engine and locomotive manufacturer at Vauxhall Foundry in Liverpool, established by Scottish engineer George Forrester. The company opened in 1827 as iron founders and commenced building steam locomotives in 1834.
context_section_description: George Forrester and Company built direct-acting side-lever engines of 464hp for the 1150ton SS Liverpool, second steam passenger vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Liverpool. The ship was built at Liverpool in 1837 by Humble and Milcrest for former Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Sir John Tobin who sold her on completion to the Transatlantic Steamship Company, a subsidiary of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company.
  The Liverpool was the first steamship built and fitted up for the transatlantic service and the first transatlantic vessel with two funnels; after making several return journeys to New York she was sold to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company; it was on this vessel that Samuel Cunard came to Liverpool from Halifax, Nova Scotia to commence business as a ship owner. P&O extended the hull of the Liverpool, increasing her tonnage to 1543 while changing the name to Great Liverpool, and put her on the mail service between Southampton and Alexandria; she was holed on a reef 24 February 1846 and went ashore off Cape Finisterre. The surviving wreck is being studied to assess recovery and preservation in a museum.
  The first British ocean-going iron warship Nemesis, launched 1839 was powered by 120 hp Forrester engines.
  In 1846 the firm built 180 hp engines for the Princess Clementine used in 1849 for superintendent of telegraphs for the South Eastern Railway Company, Charles Vincent Walker's successful experiment off Folkestone to pass messages by submarine cable. Walker sent the first submarine telegraph messages to Chairman of the Railway, James MacGregor.
  John McFarlane Gray (1831–1908) designed marine engines and various types of machinery for the firm including the first steam-steering gear, retrofitted to the Great Eastern Steamship Company's liner SS Great Eastern in 1867; between 1865 and 1878, the Great Eastern was employed laying submarine cables. Forresters also built engines for the White Star Line ocean liners RMS Atlantic, SS Celtic and SS Republic.
caption: SS Liverpool by Samuel Walters 
   On her first voyage to New York October 1838. Lieutenant R. J. Fayrer, RN Commander.[18] Engines by George Forrester & Co. An east-bound vessel of the Black Ball Line on the horizon.[19]
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