One of the UK\u2019s maritime landmarks is being renamed as part of a drive to make it \u201ccooler\u201d and more inclusive.<\/p>\n
For a decade, the dockland site in Bristol that houses the ocean liner SS Great Britain, which was designed by the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, has been promoted as Brunel\u2019s SS Great Britain<\/a>.<\/p>\n A sculpture of Isambard Kingdom Brunel inside the museum at the SS Great Britain last year. Photograph: NJphoto\/Alamy<\/p>\n But the names of both ship and engineer are being ditched and the site is to be renamed as Bristol<\/a> Dockyards.<\/p>\n The site will also focus more closely on the role the vessel played in the British empire and seek to prompt conversations about topics such as migration.<\/p>\n Andrew Edwards, the chief executive of the SS Great Britain Trust, accepted that some would describe the moves as \u201cwoke\u201d. He said: \u201cChange is never easy. You\u2019ll always get those that are resistant, but when we were shaping the vision, I tried to take stock of where the city was and what the city was all about.\u201d<\/p>\n Edwards said Bristol was often named the UK\u2019s coolest city<\/a> and he was determined the site should be \u201ccool\u201d too.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve consciously tried to avoid falling into those stereotypical ideas of what a maritime museum should look like and tried to present something that feels a little bit more rooted in Bristol,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The quayside at Brunel\u2019s SS Great Britain last year. Photograph: UKman\/Alamy<\/p>\n Renaming spaces in Bristol can be a delicate matter.<\/p>\n There was criticism from some quarters when it was announced that the city\u2019s largest concert hall was getting rid of the \u201ctoxic\u201d name of the slave trader Edward Colston<\/a>. It was renamed Bristol Beacon <\/a>in the same year that a statue of Colston was thrown into the harbour<\/a>.<\/p>\n The statue of Edward Colston being pushed into the River Avon in June 2020. Photograph: NurPhoto\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Edwards said people sometimes thought that the \u201cSS\u201d in the ship\u2019s name referred to \u201cslave ship\u201d. In fact, he said, it is short for \u201csteamship\u201d and the vessel was built after the British abolition of the slave trade.<\/p>\n The new name was announced before the July opening of its expanded and revamped museum, which will focus not so much on an engineering triumph \u2013 SS Great Britain is often called the world\u2019s first great ocean liner \u2013 but on telling the stories of the people in Bristol and across the world that the vessel helped shape.<\/p>\n It will include research by community groups that delves into the previously untold, personal histories of the ship\u2019s passengers and SS Great Britain\u2019s impact on Australia, India, the Caribbean and the US.<\/p>\n Edwards said: \u201cWe live in a very diverse world and we live in a very diverse city in Bristol. I believe the role of organisations like us is to represent that diversity as best we can and to be able to provide a little bit of something that appeals to everybody, whoever they are and wherever they\u2019ve come from. Heritage<\/a> really only works, in my view, when it has ownership within the community within which it sits.\u201d<\/p>\n Highlights include:<\/p>\n