Brunel - the great engineers

Sir Mark Isambard Brunel circa 1835
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Often overlooked in favour of his more famous son, Marc Isambard Brunel was a brilliant engineer in his own right.

He is however remembered chiefly for his design and build of the Thames Tunnel, the project which was also his son's first engineering project.

His invention of the tunneling shield (patented with Thomas Cochrane) allowed the workers to tunnel forward protected from collapses and slips. The first practical use of it was in the Thames tunnel. He had previously tried to interest the Tsar of Russia in such a tunnel, but being a practical man, the Tsar opted for a bridge.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 1858
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Dubbed the "Little Giant", Brunel was not a large man physically, but possessed of incredible energy. He was reputed to sleep only four hours a night, and often undertook multiple projects. Taking his first role working alongside his father on the Thames Tunnel, Brunel quickly began to build on his father's successes and then to surpass them.

He built railways, inventing the broad gauge and mass transit for the nineteenth century. He built tunnels, under rivers, for railways carriages and foot traffic. He built bridges - viaducts, suspension bridges, foot bridges, and more. The buildings, Paddington Station among them, many of which still stand. And finally the three great ships, the largest of their times, and the sole survivor the SS Great Britain is retired in state at Bristol Docks.

And he did all this before he died young, of a stroke many attributed to his last great project, the Steamship SS Great Eastern.

Brunel's influence stretches further than those projects he worked on directly. He had a skill for picking good people, and without his championing them we might never have heard of Sir Joseph Bazalgette (the man who defeated Cholera) or Sir Daniel Gooch (the GWR locomotive designer).

His projects below are grouped by type rather than timeline.