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Isambard Kingdom Brunel
FRS
A 19th century man wearing a jacket, trousers and waistcoat, with his hands in his pockets and a cigar in mouth, wearing a tall stovepipe top hat, standing in front of giant iron chains on a drum.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel by the launching chains of the SS Great Eastern
by Robert Howlett, 1857
Born(1806-04-09)9 April 1806
Portsmouth, England
Died15 September 1859(1859-09-15) (aged 53)
Westminster, London, England
NationalityBritish
Education
OccupationEngineer
SpouseMary Elizabeth Horsley
Children
Parents
Engineering career
Discipline
InstitutionsInstitution of Civil Engineers
Projects
Significant designRoyal Albert Bridge
Signature

Isambard Kingdom Brunel FRS (/ˈɪzəmˌbɑːd bruːˈnɛl/; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859), was a British mechanical and civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history",[1] "one of the 19th century engineering giants",[2] and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions".[3] Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway, a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering.

Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. During his career, Brunel achieved many engineering "firsts", including assisting in the building of the first tunnel under a navigable river and development of SS Great Britain, the first propeller-driven ocean-going iron ship, which was at the time (1843) also the largest ship ever built.[4][5]

Brunel set the standard for a well-built railway, using careful surveys to minimise grades and curves. This necessitated expensive construction techniques and new bridges and viaducts, and the two-mile-long Box Tunnel. One controversial feature was the wide gauge, a "broad gauge" of 7 ft 1⁄4 in (2,140 mm), instead of what was later to be known as 'standard gauge' of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm).

Brunel astonished Britain by proposing to extend the Great Western Railway westward to North America by building steam-powered iron-hulled ships. He designed and built three ships that revolutionised naval engineering.

In 2002, Brunel was placed second in a BBC public poll to determine the "100 Greatest Britons". In 2006, the bicentenary of his birth, a major programme of events celebrated his life and work under the name Brunel 200.[6]

Name[edit]

Brunel's name is an amalgamation of his parents' names. He inherited the family name of his father, and his middle name is his mother's surname. Brunel's first name, Isambard, comes from his father's middle name, which was also his father's preferred given name. "Isambard" is a Norman name of Germanic origin, meaning "iron-bright".[7] A cognate name is the German surname "Eisenbarth", which can still be found today among Bavarians and German-Americans.

Early life[edit]

The son of French civil engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel and Sophia Kingdom, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born on 9 April 1806 in Britain Street, Portsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire,[8] where his father was working on block-making machinery.[9][10] He had two older sisters, Sophia (oldest child, Sophia[11]) and Emma, and the whole family moved to London in 1808 for his father's work. Brunel had a happy childhood, despite the family's constant money worries, with his father acting as his teacher during his early years. His father taught him drawing and observational techniques from the age of four and Brunel had learned Euclidean geometry by eight. During this time he also learned fluent French and the basic principles of engineering. He was encouraged to draw interesting buildings and identify any faults in their structure.[12][13]

When Brunel was eight he was sent to Dr Morrell's boarding school in Hove, where he learned the classics. His father, a Frenchman by birth, was determined that Brunel should have access to the high-quality education he had enjoyed in his youth in France; accordingly, at the age of 14, the younger Brunel was enrolled first at the University of Caen Normandy, then at Lycée Henri-IV in Paris.[12][14]

When Brunel was 15, his father Marc, who had accumulated debts of over £5,000, was sent to a debtors' prison. After three months went by with no prospect of release, Marc let it be known that he was considering an offer from the Tsar of Russia. In August 1821, facing the prospect of losing a prominent engineer, the government relented and issued Marc £5,000 to clear his debts in exchange for his promise to remain in Britain.[15][16]

When Brunel completed his studies at Henri-IV in 1822, his father had him presented as a candidate at the renowned engineering school École Polytechnique, but as a foreigner he was deemed ineligible for entry. Brunel subsequently studied under the prominent master clockmaker and horologist Abraham-Louis Breguet, who praised Brunel's potential in letters to his father.[12] In late 1822, having completed his apprenticeship, Brunel returned to England.[14]

Thames Tunnel[edit]

A narrow railway tunnel with a single railway track, lit by a bright white light
The Thames Tunnel in 2005.
Main article: Thames Tunnel

Brunel worked for several years as an assistant engineer on the project to create a tunnel under London's River Thames between Rotherhithe and Wapping, with tunnellers driving a horizontal shaft from one side of the river to the other under the most difficult and dangerous conditions. Brunel's father, Marc, was the chief engineer, and the project was funded by the Thames Tunnel Company.[17]

The composition of the riverbed at Rotherhithe was often little more than waterlogged sediment and loose gravel. An ingenious tunnelling shield designed by Marc Brunel helped protect workers from cave-ins,[18] but two incidents of severe flooding halted work for long periods, killing several workers and badly injuring the younger Brunel.[19] The latter incident, in 1828, killed the two most senior miners, and Brunel himself narrowly escaped death. He was seriously injured, and spent six months recuperating.[20] The event stopped work on the tunnel for several years.[21]

sand; in a box
A box of sand

Though the Thames Tunnel was eventually completed during Marc Brunel's lifetime, his son had no further involvement with the tunnel proper, only using the abandoned works at Rotherhithe to further his abortive Gaz experiments. This was based on an idea of his father's, and was intended to develop into an engine that ran on power generated from alternately heating and cooling carbon dioxide made from ammonium carbonate and sulphuric acid. Despite interest from several parties (the Admiralty included) the experiments were judged by Brunel to be a failure on the grounds of fuel economy alone, and were discontinued after 1834.

In 1865 the East London Railway Company purchased the Thames Tunnel for £200,000, and four years later the first trains passed through it. Subsequently, the tunnel became part of the London Underground system, and remains in use today, originally as part of the East London Line now incorporated into the London Overground.[22]

  1. ^ "Isambard Kingdom Brunel". Design Museum. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  2. ^ "Isambard Kingdom Brunel". ss Great Britain. Retrieved 11 June 2015.
  3. ^ Rolt, Lionel Thomas Caswall (1957). Isambard Kingdom Brunel (first ed.). London: Longmans, Green & Co. p. 245.
  4. ^ Wilson 1994, pp. 202–3.
  5. ^ "Isambard Kingdom Brunel". SS Great Britain. 29 March 2006.
  6. ^ "Home". Brunel 200. Retrieved 22 July 2009.
  7. ^ Harrison, Henry. Surnames of the United Kingdom: A Concise Etymological Dictionary. p. 230.
  8. ^ Brindle, Steven (2005). Brunel: The Man Who Built the World. Weidenfield & Nicholson. p. 28. ISBN 0-297-84408-3.
  9. ^ Brunel 1870, p. 2.
  10. ^ Timbs, John (1860). Stories of inventors and discoverers in science and the useful arts. London: Kent and Co. pp. 102, 285–6. OCLC 1349834.
  11. ^ "Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Family History". tracingancestors-uk.com.
  12. ^ a b c Buchanan (2006), p. 18
  13. ^ Gillings 2006, pp. 1, 11.
  14. ^ a b Brunel, Isambard (1870), p. 5.
  15. ^ Gillings 2006, pp. 11–12.
  16. ^ Worth, Martin (1999). Sweat and Inspiration: Pioneers of the Industrial Age. Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-7509-1660-8.
  17. ^ Dumpleton & Miller 2002, pp. 14–15.
  18. ^ Aaseng, Nathan (1999). Construction: Building The Impossible. The Oliver Press, Inc. pp. 36–45. ISBN 1-881508-59-5. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  19. ^ Smith, Denis (2001). Civil Engineering Heritage: London and the Thames Valley. Thomas Telford Ltd, for The Institution of Civil Engineers. pp. 17–19. ISBN 978-0-7277-2876-0. Retrieved 16 August 2009.
  20. ^ Sources disagree about where Brunel convalesced; Buchanan (p. 30) says Brighton, while Dumpleton and Miller (p. 16) say Bristol and connect this to his subsequent work on the Clifton Suspension Bridge there.
  21. ^ Dumpleton & Miller 2002, p. 15.
  22. ^ Bagust, Harold, "The Greater Genius?", 2006, Ian Allan Publishing, ISBN 0-7110-3175-4, (pages 97–100)
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