Brunel, Isambard Kingdom

Brunel, Isambard Kingdom (1806–59). Engineer. Son of the distinguished émigré Sir Marc, Brunel was scientifically educated in Paris (unusual when the engineering profession was entered through practical pupillage) and consistently applied first principles to problems, making him more admired by subsequent engineers than contemporary shareholders. Sickness incurred at his father's Thames Tunnel (1826–8) led Brunel to convalesce at Bristol, where he gained appointments as engineer of the Clifton bridge (1829–31), the floating harbour (1830–1), and the Great Western Railway (from 1833). Brunel's engineering of the GWR demonstrated his vision and his failings: the commitment to the broad (7-feet) gauge and his own design for bolstering track promised quality and speed, but delivered inflexibility; his vision of the Atlantic crossing from Bristol encapsulated by his first two major ships, Great Western (1837) and Great Britain (1843), displayed the temptation to exceed the bounds of commercial technology proven in the outstandingly advanced Great Eastern (1858); his remarkable bridges of brick, timber, and iron; and locomotive failings from which Gooch rescued the line. A driven man, his genius produced the monitor to attack Sebastopol and the prefabricated hospital for Kronstadt, railways in Italy and India, hectored assistants and neglected pupils, and chronic overwork that contributed to early death as his two greatest achievements, the Albert bridge at Saltash and the Great Eastern, neared commissioning.

J. A. Chartres