The Great Eastern

Because of the nature of my research project, much time was spent familiarising myself with the subject matter. While I was researching the history of savantism, I discovered an early example of a piece of work.

James Henry Pullen was born in 1835, and spent 66 years of his life at the Earlswood Asylum, where he was known as the Genius of the Earlswood Asylum. He was skilled in carving ships and reproducing them in penciled drawings. He was eventually given 2 of his own workshops.

Pullen built his masterpiece The Great Eastern at the age of 35; it was a model ship for which he fashioned every screw, pulley, anchor and paddle from drawings he made beforehand. The model is 10 feet long and contains over 5000 rivets. It was exhibited at the Fisheries Exhibition in 1883 where is won the first prize medal.

The Royal Earlswood Museum in Surrey hold much of Pullens work, including The Great Eastern, I would like to visit the Museum as part of my primary research.