High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! SS Archimedes was a steamship built in Britain in 1839. She is notable for being the world's first steamship to be driven by a screw propeller.Archimedes had considerable influence on ship development, encouraging the adoption of screw propulsion by the Royal Navy, in addition to her influence on commercial vessels. She also had a direct influence on the design of another innovative vessel, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain, then the world's largest ship and the first screw-propelled steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.