Brunel 3

19th century Engineer (1806 - 1859)

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born on 9 April 1806 in Portsmouth. His father Mark was a French engineer who had fled France during the revolution. Brunel was educated both in England and in France..."Entente Cordiale"

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.

The composition of the riverbed at Rotherhithe was often little more than

waterlogged sediment and loose gravel. An ingenious tunnelling shield

incidents of severe flooding halted work for long periods, killing several

workers and badly injuring the younger Brunel. 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.

The event stopped work on the tunnel for several years.

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.

Railways and Bridges

In 1831, Brunel's designs won the competition for the Clifton Suspension

Bridge across the River Avon. Construction began the same year but it was

not completed until 1864.

The work for which Brunel is probably best remembered is his construction of

a network of tunnels, bridges and viaducts for the Great Western Railway.

In 1833, he was appointed their chief engineer and work began on the line that

linked London to Bristol. Impressive achievements during its construction

included the viaducts at Hanwell and Chippenham, the Maidenhead Bridge,

the Box Tunnel and Bristol Temple Meads Station. Brunel is noted for

introducing the broad gauge in place of the standard gauge on this line.

While working on the line from Swindon to Gloucester and South Wales he

devised the combination of tubular, suspension and truss bridge to cross the

Wye at Chepstow. This design was further improved in his famous bridge over

the Tamar at Saltash near Plymouth.

Transatlantic Shipping

In 1835, before the Great Western Railway had opened, Brunel proposed

extending its transport network by boat from Bristol across the Atlantic Ocean

to New York City. The Great Western Steamship Company, appointed him to

its building committee and entrusted him with designing its first ship, the

Great Western.

When it was built, the Great Western was the longest ship in the world at 236ft

with a 250ft keel. The ship was constructed mainly from wood, but Brunel

added bolts and iron diagonal reinforcements to maintain the keel's strength.

In addition to its steam-powered paddle wheels, the ship carried four masts

for sails. The Great Western embarked on her maiden voyage from Avonmouth,

Bristol, to New York on 8 April 1838 with 600 long tons of coal, cargo and seven

passengers on board. Brunel himself missed this initial crossing, having been

injured during a fire aboard the ship as she was returning from fitting out in

London. As the fire delayed the launch several days, the Great Western missed its opportunity to claim title as the first ship to cross the Atlantic under steam power alone. Even with a four day head start, the competing Sirius arrived only one day earlier and its crew was forced to burn cabin furniture, spare yards and one mast for fuel. In contrast, the Great Western crossing of the Atlantic took 15 days and five hours, and the ship arrived at her destination with a third of its coal still remaining. The Great Western had proved the viability of commercial transatlantic steamship service, which led the Great Western Steamboat Company to use her in regular service between Bristol and New York from 1838 to 1846. She made 64 crossings, and was the first ship to hold the Blue Riband with a crossing time of 13 days westbound and 12 days 6 hours eastbound. The service was commercially successful enough for a sister ship, the SS Great Britain to be required, which Brunel was asked to design.

Brunel had become convinced of the superiority of propeller driven ships over

paddle wheels. After tests conducted aboard the propeller driven steam tug

Archimedes, he incorporated a large six-bladed propeller into his design for the

322 foot Great Britain, which was launched in 1843. Great Britain is considered

the first modern ship, being built of metal rather than wood, powered by an

engine rather than wind or oars, and driven by propeller rather than paddle

wheel. She was the first iron hulled, propeller driven ship to cross the Atlantic

Ocean. Her maiden voyage was made in August and September 1845, from

Liverpool to New York. In 1846, she was run aground at Dundrum, County

Down. She was salvaged and employed in the Australian service. Today she

is fully preserved and open to the public in Bristol.

In 1852 Brunel turned to a third ship, larger than her predecessors, intended

for voyages to India and Australia. The Great Eastern (originally dubbed

Leviathan) was cutting edge technology for her time: almost 700ft long, fitted

out with the most luxurious appointments, and capable of carrying over 4,000

passengers. Great Eastern was designed to cruise non-stop from London to

Sydney and back (since engineers of the time misunderstood that Australia had

no coal reserves), and she remained the largest ship built until the start of the

20th century. Like many of Brunel's ambitious projects, the ship soon ran over

budget and behind schedule in the face of a series of technical problems. The

ship has been portrayed as a white elephant, but it has been argued that in this

case Brunel's failure was principally one of economics - his ships were simply

years ahead of their time. His vision and engineering innovations made the

building of large scale, propeller driven, all metal steamships a practical reality,

but the prevailing economic and industrial conditions meant that it would be

several decades before transoceanic steamship travel emerged as a viable industry.

Great Eastern was built at John Scott Russell's Napier Yard in London, and after two trial trips in 1859, set forth on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 17 June 1860.

Though a failure at her original purpose of passenger travel, she eventually found a role as an oceanic telegraph cable-layer. Under Captain Sir James Anderson, the Great Eastern played a significant role in laying the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable, which enabled telecommunication between Europe and North America.

Brunel, a heavy smoker, suffered a stroke in 1859, just before the Great Eastern made her first voyage to New York. He died ten days later at the age of 53 and was buried, like his father, in Kensal Green Cemetery in London.