Since Stone-Age man shaped the first dug-out canoe and floated it downriver, and the invading armies of Rome crossed vast oceans to conquer whole nations, mankind has suffered from one specific malady connected with travelling on water – namely seasickness.  Even the heroic victor of the ‘Battle of Trafalgar’ was known to suffer greatly from it.

Although there are pills, potions and age-old recipes designed to ease the symptoms of this distressing condition, there has never been an effective cure.  However, in I868 an inventor named Henry Bessemer believed that his latest invention would solve the problem once and for all.

Henry Bessemer was born in Charlton, Hertfordshire, England, on the 19th January 1813 and, like his wealthy father, he too became an inventor.  Amongst other things, Henry became the first person in the world of steel-making to invent the process of mass-producing steel.  He also found a way to compress plumbago dust to make ‘lead’ pencils, which he sold to a friend for around £200, and produced brass powder to use in pigments in place of gold.

Unfortunately for Henry, like Horatio Nelson before him, he suffered badly from seasickness, which caused him much distress as he often had to cross the English Channel to conduct business in France.  With this in mind he set out to invent a cure.

As an engineer he was well aware of the concept of how a ship’s compass stayed level in use, regardless of how much the vessel pitched and rolled, and knew that if he could apply this principle to the cabin of a ship, the world-wide problem of seasickness would finally be resolved.

In the garden of his home in Denmark Hill, London, he constructed a working model of his design, whereby a cabin was supported by a system of gimbals making it totally independent of the outside walls; or what in reality would be the main structure of a ship.  Putting the model through a series of tests, simulating the effects of wave action at sea, he was delighted to find that the model responded well.  Encouraged by the results the inventor decided to go into full-scale production of his design – the Bessemer Saloon.

In association with ship designer, Edward James Reed, he had the Bessemer Saloon installed within a converted cross-channel, 4-paddle steamer.  The swinging saloon was 70ft in length and 30ft in width and was furnished sumptuously in the Victorian style of the time.  Large gilt mirrors adorned the walls, potted plants were placed at strategic points and thickly padded leather seats were provided to add to the air of elegance and luxury.

Finally the day of truth had arrived, the ship was ready to undertake its maiden voyage, and Henry Bessemer was ready to prove to the whole world that he had invented the cure for seasickness!

In 1875, on a private voyage with invited guests and investors only, the SS Bessemer steamed out of the safety of Dover harbour and headed across the English Channel for France. 

Everything seemed to be going well, until the ship approached the French port of Calais.  What Bessemer could not have foreseen during the trials with his garden model, was that at slow speed the action of the swinging cabin made the vessel virtually uncontrollable; a fact that hit home in more ways than one when the paddle-steamer collided with the wooden pier at the entrance to Calais harbour.

Undaunted, and confident that his invention would work, Bessemer returned to England.  Hasty repairs were made to the ship and on the 8th May 1875 – on a voyage available to members of the public – the SS Bessemer once again steamed across the Channel towards France.

Due to the fact that full repairs could not be made in the time allotted between voyages, the saloon had to be locked in place during the trip across the Channel, which to anyone’s mind would have made the whole trip rather pointless! 

The result of the ‘locking-in-place’ of the saloon was to have a devastating effect on the stability of the ship.  The pier at Calais was about to suffer again!

As the vessel slowed to a crawl and the wooden pier crowded with onlookers drew nearer and nearer, the SS Bessemer began to roll about alarmingly, totally unresponsive to the steering operations of the helmsman.  Within minutes the ear-splitting sound of splintering wood rose above the cheers of the crowd as the ship rammed into the pier, it knocked down a large number of supporting pillars and left the whole structure in an extremely dangerous condition.

In his autobiography, Bessemer recounts the collision with the pier.  “We had arrived – very slowly, it must be admitted – at the entrance of Calais harbour.  I, knowing what had occurred on a previous occasion, held my breath while the veteran Captain Pittock gave his orders to the man at the helm.  But the ship did not obey him, and crash she went along the pier side, knocking down the huge timbers like so many ninepins!”

Following these two chaotic incidents, the investors who had pledged capital for the project quickly disassociated themselves from the whole affair.  Henry’s dream of overcoming the scourge of seasickness, and seeing a fleet of ships containing a Bessemer Saloon crossing the oceans of the world, evaporated.  The SS Bessemer was consigned to the scrap heap in 1879 and remained rusting in a Dover dock, never to sail again.  

But, this was not the last that would be heard of the Bessemer Saloon!

When the SS Bessemer was eventually broken up, Edward James Reed who had been closely involved with the doomed enterprise stepped in to save the saloon and had it transported to his home, Huxtable House in Swanley, Kent, where it served for many years as a private billiard hall. 

When the house later became the Swanley Agricultural College, the saloon was pressed into service one again – this time as a lecture hall. 

So, had Henry Bessemer’s innovative design at least been saved for posterity?  Unfortunately not!

In a sad twist of fate, the story of the Bessemer Saloon came to an abrupt and undignified end in World War Two – it was destroyed by a direct hit from a German bomber flying over Kent.