Overview

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was one of the great icons of engineering. There was about the man an extraordinary competence, confidence and congruence.

Born in 1806 his father an innovative engineer in his own right by the age of twenty he was the engineer in charge of the difficult works involved in constructing the Thames tunnel, overcoming disasters and displaying the outstanding qualities that would exemplify his working career. His imagination knew few bounds, moving with ease from tunnels to bridges, railways to harbours, to prefabricated buildings and even ships. He crossed the divides between the civil engineer, mechanical engineer, naval architect, and architect with ease, always at the cutting edge of the current technology of his age, taking his collaborators with him to the limits of their capacities.

As an entrepreneur he anticipated and exploited developing markets throughout his life. It cannot be said that he made his fortune, or fortunes for his backers, but his contribution to society was such that he can be spoken of as one the great Britons (Cooper 2002). Like his fellow Victorian engineers, there was a sense in which all the different aspects that we have written about in this book came together in this man. He lived in a time of settled values and a confidence in progress but the changes in engineering and technology following on from the start of the industrial revolution heralded changes in society and the professions that served them. In Brunel's lifetime the professions of...