The SS Bessemer's gimbal cabin was meant to cure seasickness — it never got used

Henry Bessemer — the inventor of the steel-making process, holder of more than 120 patents and, by reputation, a man who suffered very badly with seasickness — decided the modern Victorian age could engineer the problem away. His answer was the SS Bessemer, a 350ft paddle steamer launched at Earle's Shipyard on the Hull in 1874, whose first-class cabin hung on gimbals so it could swing back and forth, supposedly cancelling out the action of the waves. He raised £250,000 to build it.

The ship was dogged by misfortune from the start: caught by a storm tide, it ran aground near Barton before entering service. Its first voyage to France, carrying the press and dignitaries, damaged one of its four paddle wheels. The first crossing with paying passengers, on 8 May 1875, was worse — it crashed into the pier at Calais and destroyed part of the harbour, and French authorities seized the ship until the bill was paid. The company formed to build it went into liquidation.

The bitterest irony: the celebrated anti-seasickness cabin was never used on either sailing. The ship was bought by an iron manufacturer and moored at Albert Dock as a tourist attraction charging visitors sixpence, ran coastal trips, grounded on a sandbank off Grimsby, and was towed to London for scrap in the early 1880s after its new owner went bankrupt. The cabin ended up as a billiard room in a Kent stately home — until the house was destroyed in a Second World War air raid.

£250,000 raised; the first paying crossing wrecked part of Calais harbour and the ship was seized; the company liquidated and the ship was scrapped by the early 1880s.

The swaying cabin — the entire reason the ship existed — was never switched on in service, so passengers crossed on an ordinary vessel with an extraordinary price tag.

Ship handling was never solved: a 350ft unconventional paddler damaged its own wheel in front of the press and then demolished a pier on its first paying run.

There was no second act to sell: without a working novelty or a reliable ferry, all that remained was a damaged reputation and a hulk.

Test the invention before the revenue service: the mechanism designed to cancel the waves was never used on either of the ship's sailings.

University of Hull research fellow Dr Robb Robinson still credits the Bessemer with a legacy: it kept the problem of seasickness on engineering agendas, foreshadowing the stabilisers used on modern cruise ships.