Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS (9
April 1806 – 15 September 1859) (IPA: [ˈɪzəmbɑ(ɹ)d ˈkɪŋdəm brʊˈnɛl]), was a British engineer. He is best known for the creation of the Great Western
Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges, hence revolutionising public transport and modern day engineering.
Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering
problems. During his short 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 also the largest ship ever built.[1]
Brunel suffered several years of ill health, with kidney problems, before succumbing to a
stroke at the age of 53. Brunel was said to smoke up to 40 cigars a day and to sleep as few as
four hours each night.
In 2006, a major programme of events celebrated his life and work on the bicentenary of
his birth under the name Brunel 200.[2]
Early life
The son of engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (the name Brunel is probably a
derivation from the Italian name Brunelli), a Frenchman, and Sophia (née
Kingdom) Brunel (d. 1854), Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, on 9 April 1806.[3] His father was working there on block-making machinery for the
Portsmouth Block Mills.
At 14 he was sent to France to be educated at the Lycée
Henri-Quatre in Paris and the University of Caen in Normandy.[4] Brunel rose to prominence when, aged 20, he was
appointed chief assistant engineer of his father's greatest achievement, the Thames
Tunnel, which runs beneath the river between Rotherhithe and Wapping.
The first major sub-river tunnel, it succeeded where other attempts had failed, thanks to Marc Brunel's ingenious
tunnelling shield — the human-powered forerunner of today's mighty tunnelling machines — which protected workers from cave-in by placing them within a protective
casing. Marc Brunel had been inspired to create the shield after observing the habits and anatomy of the shipworm, Teredo navalis.
Most modern tunnels are cut in this way, notably the Channel Tunnel between England
and France.[5]
Brunel established his design offices at 17–18 Duke Street, London, and he lived with his family in the rooms above.[6]
On 5 July 1836, Brunel married Mary Elizabeth Horsley (b. 1813),
the eldest daughter of composer and organist William Horsley, who came from an accomplished musical and artistic family.
R.P. Brereton, who became his chief assistant in 1845, was in charge of the office in
Brunel's absence, and also took direct responsibility for major projects such as the Royal
Albert Bridge as Brunel's health declined.
Thames Tunnel
-
Brunel worked for nearly two years to create a tunnel under London's River Thames, 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
Thames river bed at Rotherhithe was often little more than waterlogged sediment and loose
gravel, and although the extreme conditions proved the ingenuity of Brunel's tunnelling machine, the work was hard and
hazardous.[7]
For the workers the building of the tunnel was particularly unpleasant because the Thames at that time was still little better
than an open sewer, so the tunnel was usually awash with foul-smelling, contaminated water. The
tunnel was often in imminent danger of collapse due to the instability of the river bed, yet the management decided to allow
spectators to be lowered down to observe the diggings at a shilling a time. Two severe
incidents of flooding halted work for long periods, killing several workers and badly injuring the younger Brunel.
The later incident, in 1828, killed the two most senior miners, Collins and Ball, and Brunel himself narrowly escaped death; a
water break-in hurled him from a tunnelling platform, knocking him unconscious, and he was washed up to the other end of the
tunnel by the surge. As the water rose, by luck he was carried up a service stairway, where he was plucked from almost certain
death by an assistant moments before the surge receded. Brunel was seriously hurt (and never fully recovered from his injuries),
and the event ended work on the tunnel for several years.[4]
The tunnel is still in operation, accommodating the London Underground
East London Line between Rotherhithe and
Wapping.[8] The building
that contained the pumps to keep the Thames Tunnel dry was saved from demolition in the 1970s by volunteers and made a
Scheduled Ancient Monument. It now houses the Brunel
Museum, which documents not just the Thames Tunnel but also Brunels' other two achievements.
Bridges
Brunel's solo engineering feats started with bridges — the Royal Albert Bridge
spanning the River Tamar at Saltash near Plymouth, and an unusual timber-framed bridge near Bridgwater.[9]
Built in 1838, the Maidenhead Railway Bridge over the Thames in
Berkshire was the flattest, widest brick arch bridge in the world and is still carrying main
line trains to the west. There are two arches, with each span totalling 128 ft (39 m), having a rise of only 24 ft (7 m), and a
width that carries four tracks. The rather flat arches reduce the difficulty railway engines have with steep gradients
(especially on hump back bridges) and today's trains are about 10 times as heavy as Brunel ever imagined.[10]
In 1845 Hungerford Bridge, a suspension
footbridge across the Thames, near Charing Cross Station in
London, was opened only to be replaced by a new railway bridge in 1859.
Throughout his railway building, but particularly on the South Devon and
Cornwall Railways where economy was needed and there were many valleys to cross, Brunel
made extensive use of wood for the construction of substantial viaducts;[11] these have had to be replaced over the years.
The Royal Albert Bridge was designed in 1855 for the Cornwall Railway Company, after
Parliament rejected his original plan for a train ferry across the Hamoaze — the estuary of the tidal Tamar, Tavy and Lynher. The bridge
(of bowstring girder or tied arch construction) consists of two main spans of 455 ft (139 m), 100 ft
(30 m) above mean high spring tide, plus 17 much shorter approach spans. Opened by
Prince Albert on 2 May 1859, it was completed in the year of Brunel's death.
However, Brunel is perhaps best remembered for the Clifton Suspension
Bridge in Bristol. Spanning over 700 ft (213 m), and nominally 200 ft (61 m) above the
River Avon, it had the longest span of any bridge in the world at the time of
construction. Brunel submitted four designs to a committee headed by Thomas Telford and
gained approval to commence with the project. Afterwards, Brunel wrote to his brother-in-law, the politician Benjamin Hawes: "Of
all the wonderful feats I have performed, since I have been in this part of the world, I think yesterday I performed the most
wonderful. I produced unanimity among 15 men who were all quarrelling about that most ticklish subject — taste." He did not live
to see it built, although his colleagues and admirers at the Institution of
Civil Engineers felt the bridge would be a fitting memorial, and started to raise new funds and to amend the design. Work
started in 1862 and was complete in 1864, five years after Brunel's death.[12]
In 2006, there is the possibility that several of Brunel's bridges over the Great Western Railway might be demolished because
the line is planned to be electrified, and there is inadequate clearance for the overhead wires. Buckinghamshire County Council is petitioning to have further options pursued, in order that all nine of
the historic remaining bridges on the line can remain.[13][14]
Great Western Railway
-
In the early part of Brunel's life, the use of railways began to take off as a major means of transport for passengers and
goods. This influenced Brunel's involvement in railway engineering, including railway bridge engineering.
In 1833, before the Thames Tunnel was complete, Brunel was appointed chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, one of the wonders of Victorian
Britain, running from London to Bristol and later Exeter.[15] The Company was founded at a
public meeting in Bristol in 1833, and was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1835.
Brunel made two controversial decisions: to use a broad gauge of
7 ft 0¼ in (2,140 mm) for the track, which he believed would offer superior running at high speeds; and to
take a route that passed north of the Marlborough Downs, an area with no significant
towns, though it offered potential connections to Oxford and Gloucester and then to follow the Thames Valley into London. His decision to use broad gauge for the
line was controversial in that almost all British railways to date had used standard
gauge. Brunel said that this was nothing more than a carry-over from the mine railways that George Stephenson had worked on prior to making the world's first passenger railway. Brunel worked out
through mathematics and a series of trials that his broader gauge was the optimum railway size for providing stability and a
comfortable ride to passengers, in addition to allowing for bigger carriages and more
freight capacity.[16] He
surveyed the entire length of the route between London and Bristol himself.
Drawing on his experience with the Thames Tunnel, the Great Western contained a series of impressive achievements — soaring
viaducts, specially designed stations, and vast tunnels including the famous Box Tunnel, which was the longest railway tunnel in the world at that time.[4]
There is an anecdote that Box Tunnel is so oriented that the sun shines all the way through it on Brunel's birthday. For more
information, see Box Tunnel.[17]
The initial group of locomotives ordered by Brunel to his own specifications proved unsatisfactory, apart from the
North Star locomotive, and 20-year-old Daniel Gooch
(later Sir Daniel) was appointed as Superintendent of Locomotives. Brunel and Gooch chose to
locate their locomotive works at the village of Swindon,
at the point where the gradual ascent from London turned into the steeper descent to the Avon valley at Bath.
Brunel's achievements ignited the imagination of the technically minded Britons of the age, and he soon became one of the most
famous men in the country on the back of this interest.
After Brunel's death the decision was taken that standard gauge should be used for all railways in the country. Despite the
Great Western's claim of proof that its broad gauge was the better (disputed by at least one Brunel historian), the decision was
made to use Stephenson's standard gauge, mainly because this had already covered a far greater amount of the country. However, by
May 1892 when the broad gauge was abolished the Great Western had already been re-laid as dual
gauge (both broad and standard) and so the transition was a relatively painless one.[4]
The present Paddington station was designed by Brunel and opened in 1854.
Examples of his designs for smaller stations on the Great Western and associated lines which survive in good condition include
Mortimer, Charlbury and
Bridgend (all Italianate) and
Culham (Tudorbethan). Surviving
examples of wooden train sheds in his style are at Frome and Kingswear.
The great achievement that was the Great Western Railway has been immortalised
in the Swindon Steam Railway Museum.
Brunel's "atmospheric caper"
A reconstruction of Brunel's atmospheric railway, using a segment of the original piping at
Didcot Railway Centre
Another of Brunel's interesting though ultimately unsuccessful technical innovations was the atmospheric railway, the extension of the GWR southward from Exeter towards Plymouth, technically the South Devon Railway (SDR),
though supported by the GWR. Instead of using locomotives, the trains were moved by Clegg and
Samuda's patented system of atmospheric (vacuum) traction, whereby stationary pumps sucked air
from the tunnel.
The section from Exeter to Newton (now Newton Abbot) was completed on this principle,
with pumping stations with distinctive square chimneys spaced every two miles, and trains ran at approximately
20 miles per hour (30 km/h).[4]
Fifteen-inch (381 mm) pipes were used on the level portions, and 22-inch (559 mm) pipes were intended for the steeper
gradients.
The technology required the use of leather flaps to seal the vacuum pipes. The leather had to be kept supple by the use of
tallow, and tallow is attractive to rats. The result was inevitable
— the flaps were eaten, and vacuum operation lasted less than a year, from 1847 (experimental services began in September;
operationally from February 1848) to 10 September 1848.[18]
The accounts of the SDR for 1848 suggest that atmospheric traction cost 3s 1d (three shillings and one penny) per mile
compared to 1s 4d/mile for conventional steam power. A number of South Devon
Railway engine houses still stand, including that at Starcross, on the estuary of the
River Exe, which is a striking landmark, and a reminder of the atmospheric railway, also
commemorated as the name of the village pub.
A section of the pipe, without the leather covers, is preserved at the Didcot Railway
Centre.
Transatlantic shipping
Brunel Launch of the SS Great Britain, the revolutionary ship of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, at Bristol in
1843
Great Eastern At Sea, the great ship of IK Brunel as imagined at sea by the artist at her launch in
1858
Brunel at the Launching of The Great Eastern with John Scott Russell & Lord Derby
Even before the Great Western Railway was opened, Brunel was moving on to his next project: transatlantic shipping. He used his prestige to convince his railway company employers to build the
Great Western, at the time by far the largest steamship in the world. She first
sailed in 1837.
She was 236 ft (72 m) long, built of wood, and powered by sail and paddlewheels. Her first return trip to
New York City took just 29 days, compared to two months for an average sailing ship.
In total, 74 crossings to New York were made. The Great Britain followed in
1843; much larger at 322 ft (98 m) long, she was the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the
Atlantic Ocean.[19]
Building on these successes, Brunel turned to a third ship in 1852, even larger than both of her predecessors, and intended
for voyages to India and Australia. The Great Eastern (originally dubbed Leviathan) was cutting-edge technology for her time: almost
700 ft (213 m) long, fitted out with the most luxurious appointments and capable of carrying over 4,000 passengers.
She was designed to be able to cruise under her own power non-stop from London to Sydney and back since engineers of the time
were under the misapprehension that Australia had no coal reserves, and she remained the largest ship built until the turn of the
century. Like many of Brunel's ambitious projects, the ship soon ran over budget and behind schedule in the face of a series of
momentous technical problems.[4]
The ship has been portrayed as a white elephant, but it can be 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, screw-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 the following year on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 17 June 1860.[20]
Though a failure at her original purpose of passenger travel, she eventually found a role as an oceanic telegraph cable-layer, and the Great Eastern remains one of the most important vessels in the history
of shipbuilding — the Trans-Atlantic cable had been laid, which meant that
Europe and America now had a telecommunications link.[4]
Crimean war
During 1854, Britain entered into the Crimean War, an old Turkish Barrack building became
the British Army hospital in Scutari (modern-day Üsküdar in Istanbul). With injured men suffering from a variety of illnesses including cholera, dysentery, typhoid and
malaria purely from hospital conditions,[21] Florence Nightingale sent a plea to The Times for the government to produce a solution.
Brunel was already working on building the SS Great Eastern amongst other projects,
but accepted the task in February 1855 of designing and building the War Office requirement
of a temporary, pre-fabricated hospital that could be shipped to the Crimea and erected. In 5 months he had designed, built and shipped the pre-fabricated wood and canvas
buildings[22] that were erected, near Scutari Hospital
where Nightingale was based, in the malaria free area of Renkioi.[23]
His designs incorporated the necessity of hygiene, providing access to sanitation, ventilation, drainage and even rudimentary temperature
controls. They were feted as a great success, some sources stating that of the 1,300 (approximate) patients treated in the
Renkioi temporary hospital, there were only 50 deaths.[24] In the Scutari hospital it replaced, deaths were said to be as many as 10 times this number.
Nightingale herself referred to them as "those magnificent huts."[25] Brunel not only designed the buildings but gave advice as to the location of placing.[26]
The art of using pre-fabricated modules to build hospitals has been carried forward into the present day,[23] with hospitals such as the Bristol Royal Infirmary being created in this manner.
Illnesses and death of Brunel
In 1843, while performing a conjuring trick for the amusement of his children,
Brunel accidentally inhaled a half-sovereign coin, which became lodged in
his windpipe. A special pair of forceps failed to remove it, as did a machine devised by Brunel
himself to shake it loose.
Eventually, at the suggestion of Sir Marc, Brunel was strapped to a board and turned upside-down, and the coin was jerked
free.[27] He convalesced by visiting Teignmouth and enjoyed the area so much that he purchased an estate at Watcombe in Torquay, Devon. Here he designed Brunel
Manor and its gardens to be his retirement home. Unfortunately he never saw the house or gardens finished, as he died
before it was completed.
Brunel suffered a stroke in 1859, just before the Great Eastern made her first voyage
to New York.[28] He
died ten days later at the age of 53 and was buried, like his father, in Kensal Green
Cemetery in London.[29]
He left behind his wife Mary and three children: Isambard Brunel Junior (1837–1902), Henri
Marc Brunel (1842–1903) and Florence Mary Brunel (c.1847–1876).[30] Henri Marc enjoyed some success as a civil
engineer.
Legacy
Bronze statue of Brunel at
Temple in London.
Brunel book cover, the cigar edited out of the original image.
- Many monuments to Brunel exist. There are statues in London at Temple (pictured)
and Brunel University, Bristol, Saltash, Swindon, Milford Haven, Nyeland and
Paddington station. The flagpole of the Great Eastern is at the entrance to
Liverpool FC, and a section of the ship's funnel is at Sutton Poyntz, near Weymouth.
- Contemporary locations bear Brunel's name, such as Brunel University in London,
and a collection of streets in Exeter: Isambard Terrace, Kingdom Mews, and Brunel Close. A road, car park and school in his home
town of Portsmouth are also named in his honour, along with the town's largest pub. Although not of any real architectural merit,
the Brunel shopping centre in Bletchley, Milton Keynes is named after him.
- Most of Brunel's bridges are still in use. The Thames Tunnel is now part of the London
Underground, and the Brunel Engine House at Rotherhithe that once housed the steam
engines that powered the tunnel pumps still stands, as a museum dedicated to the work and lives of Marc and Isambard Kingdom
Brunel.
- The image of Brunel used to illustrate the cover of a children's book, The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel published
by Heinemann in March 2005, was altered because of fears that the image of Brunel smoking a cigar
would provide an unsuitable role model for five to seven year olds and might result in school libraries not buying the
book.[32]
- Brunel is credited with turning the town of Swindon into one of the largest growing towns in
Europe during the 1800s.[33] The siting of the Great
Western Railway locomotive sheds here and the need for housing for the workers, gave Brunel the impetus to build hospitals,
churches and housing estates in what was termed 'New Swindon' (subsequently swallowed by the rest of the expanding, mainly
agricultural, town). This area is known today as the 'Railway Village'. Brunel's addition of a Mechanics Institute for recreation
and Hospitals and clinics for his workers gave Aneurin Bevan the basis for the creation of
the National Health Service according to some sources.[34] The current hospital in Swindon was named the Great Western Hospital in commemoration, which also contains the 'Brunel Treatment Centre'
- In 1975, noted British animator Bob Godfrey was awarded an Oscar for his short film, Great, an irreverent musical look at
Brunel and his times.
- An opera about him was given a concert performance at the Colston Hall, Bristol on 18 July
1993, the day before the 150th anniversary of the launch of the SS Great Britain. Titled
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and written by Will Todd and Ben
Dunwell, The Times noted that it was an "epic tale of passion, wild ambition and
insanity." In 1994 Todd wrote the orchestral suite Brunel.
- In 2006, the Royal Mint struck a £2 coin
to "celebrate the 200th anniversary of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his achievements."[35] The coin depicts a section of the Royal
Albert Bridge at Saltash, along with a portrait of Brunel. The Post Office issued a set
of commemorative stamps.
- On 8 April 2006, Bristol celebrated Brunel's 200th birthday
with a series of festivities. These included a concert of brass bands, an epic saxophone ensemble, a choral piece and a fireworks
display over the Avon Gorge culminating in the switching on of new lighting for the
Clifton Suspension Bridge.
- In Plymouth, the city of one of Brunel's finest achievements (Royal Albert
Bridge), a 2 metre high wooden statue costing £4,500 can be found in the Pennycombequick roundabout, celebrating the major
impact he had on the city and its transport links with the whole of Cornwall.
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See also
Notes and references
- ^ SS Great Britain ([1]) Isambard Kingdom
Brunel Retrieved Mar. 29, 2006.
- ^ Brunel 200 ([2]) Brunel 200 website Retrieved Feb. 21, 2006.
- ^ Brunel University (see [3]) History: Isambard Kingdom Brunel Retrieved Feb. 20, 2006.
- ^ a b c d e f g Dumpleton.
Brunel's Three Ships, Intellect Books, 2002. (ISBN 1-84150-800-4)
- ^ West, Graham. Innovation and the Rise of the Tunnelling Industry,
Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 0-521-33512-4)
- ^ Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix; Mendelssohn, Cecille; Ward, Jones. The
1837 Diary of Felix and Cecille Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Oxford University Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-19-816597-8)
- ^ Aaseng, Nathan. Construction: Building The Impossible, The Oliver
Press, Inc., 1999. (ISBN 1-881508-59-5)
- ^ UK Government - Transport for London ([4]) London
Underground History - The Early Years Retrieved Feb. 18, 2006.
- ^ Billington, David P. Tower and the Bridge, Princeton University
Press, 1985. (ISBN 0-691-02393-X)
- ^ Gordon J E (1978) Structures: or why things don't fall down,
Penguin, London, 395pp. (ISBN 0-14-013628-2)
- ^ Lewis, Brian. Brunel's timber bridges and viaducts, Ian Allan,
Hersham, 2007. (ISBN 978-07110-3218-7)
- ^ BBC History (see [5])
Brunel: The Practical Prophet of Technological Innovation by Professor G. Ross Peters Retrieved November 21, 2006.
- ^ Bucks CC (see [6]) "Brunel’s
Bridges under threat," retrieved Feb. 22, 2006.
- ^ UK Govt. Dept. for Culture, Media and Sport ([7]) World Heritage Sites: The Tentative List of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Retrieved Feb. 22, 2006.
- ^ Garrison, Ervan G. A History of Engineering and Technology, CRC
Press, 1998. (ISBN 0-8493-9810-X)
- ^ Oliivier, J. The Broad Gauge the Banc of the Great Western Railway
Company, 1846
- ^ Williams, Archibald. The Romance of Modern Locomotion, C. A.
Pearson Ltd., 1904.
- ^ Parkin, Jim. Engineering Judgement and Risk, Thomas Telford
(publishers), 2000. (ISBN 0-7277-2873-3)
- ^ Lienhard, John H. The Engines of Our Ingenuity, Oxford University
Press US, 2003. (ISBN 0-19-516731-7)
- ^ Zerah Colburn: The Spirit of Darkness, Arima Publishing, 2005.
(ISBN 1-84549-024-X)
- ^ Report on Medical Care (see [8]) British
National Archives (WO 33/1 ff.119, 124, 146-7 (23 February 1855))
- ^ Renkioi Hospital Buildings image (see [9]) The Florence
Nightingale Museum, retrieved November 30, 2006
- ^ a b Hospital Development Magazine (see [10]) Lessons from
Renkioi, November 10, 2005
- ^ Palmerston, Brunel and Florence Nightingale’s Field Hospital (see
[11]) Palmerston and Politics, HMSwarrior.org retrieved November 30, 2006
- ^ Public Health (see [12]) Britains
Modern Brunels, BBC Radio 4, retrieved November 30, 2006
- ^ Prefabricated wooden hospitals (see [13])
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British National Archives (WO 43/991 ff.76-7 (7 September 1855))
- ^ Dyer, T.F. Thiselton. Strange Pages from Family Papers 1900,
Kessinger Publishing, 2003. (ISBN 0-7661-5346-0)
- ^ Deborah Cadbury. Seven Wonders of the Industrial World 2003,
Fourth Estate, (ISBN 0-00-716304-5)
- ^ Skempton, A; Rennison, Robert William; CoxHumphreys, Rob. Biographical
Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland v. 1 1500-1830, Thomas Telford (publishers), 2002. (ISBN
0-7277-2939-X)
- ^ Brunel Collection: Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) papers
- ^ [14].
- ^ Hansford, Mark. New Civil Engineer Issue No. 1604,
8 December 2005. (ISSN 0307-7683).
- ^ Swindon Advertiser (see [15]) How Town was put on the map by Brunel by Stephanie Tye January 20, 2006
- ^ BBC Legacies (see [16] A
model for the NHS Retrieved November 30, 2006
- ^ [17].
External links
Television
Newspaper
Further reading
- Isambard Brunel (1870; reprinted 1970, David & Charles). The Life of
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer. Written by Brunel's son.
- Celia Brunel Noble (1938). The Brunels, Father and Son. Written by
Brunel's grand-daughter, it adds some family anecdotes and personal information over the previous volume.
- L. T. C. Rolt (1957; reprinted with new introduction 1989, Penguin). Isambard
Kingdom Brunel. ISBN 0-582-10744-X, ISBN 0-14-007986-6, ISBN 0-14-011752-0. Rolt's highly acclaimed biography of Brunel is
still the best and most complete.
- Sir Alfred Pugsley, ed. (1976). The Works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel: An
Engineering Appreciation. A technical presentation of Brunel's opus.
- Adrian Vaughan (1991). Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Engineering
Knight-Errant. John Murray. ISBN 0-7195-4636-2. Vaughan presents some interesting interpretations in this volume. His 2006
Brunel: an engineering biography (Ian Allan, ISBN 978-07110-3078-7) is a more orthodox interpretation with notable
reproductions of engineering drawings.
- R. Angus Buchanan (2002). Brunel: The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom
Brunel. Hambledon and London. ISBN 1-85285-331-X. Buchanan gives a rather more scholarly presentation together with the wider
context in which Brunel lived and worked.
