Count István Széchenyi was born in 1791 in Vienna as the son of Ferenc Széchényi and Julianna Festetics. The highly educated and broad-minded father left two great legacies to his son: unconditional patriotism and the growth of the country’s intellectual knowledge. The young count began to travel around Europe after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It was the novelties he saw in England in particular that made him realise how backward his own country was. The count became known to the general public from the early 1830s, primarily through the introduction of his plans, which were considered novel in Hungary, including river regulation, transport development, and steam navigation. In Hungary, he was the most persistent and foremost advocate of Danube transport.
In various panels, he urged the establishment of navigability on the entire section of the Danube and, to this end, the country’s integration into world trade, the center of which would be the later unified Budapest. To this end, he had the dredging ship VIDRA built in 1834 on government commission. Széchenyi also actively followed the work taking place at the Óbuda Shipyard, regularly visiting the plant.
It was also thanks to his effective and systematic work that by the beginning of the next decade the Óbuda Shipyard became one of the most modern shipbuilding centers of its time. Széchenyi visited the Óbuda Shipyard for the last time on 29 August 1848, never to return.
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