July 2nd, 2018: Toy Boat Toy Boat Toy Boat

[xoxoxoBruce]

What’s a teen to do while locked up in an 1870 British asylum? Build a toy boat, toy boat, toy boat.
Sounds like he might have come from a wealthy family to support this activity.

Confined since age 15 in Surrey’s Earlswood Asylum, autistic savant James Henry Pullen spent seven years building a 10-foot replica of the iron steamship Great Eastern. Completed in 1877, it included brass anchors, copper paddles, 13 lifeboats, hundreds of individually molded planks, 5,585 rivets, and more than 1 million wooden pins made in a specially constructed pin mill. The upper deck could be hoisted to reveal state cabins and furniture inside.

This is the sectional plan of the actual 692-foot steamship, for comparison.

It’s now on display at the Museum at the Langdon Down Centre in Teddington.

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