Brunel

2006-06-19

History

Author: R. Angus Buchanan

Publisher: A&C Black

ISBN: 9781852855253

Category: History

Page: 338

View: 7633

>

Brunel

2006-05

Biography & Autobiography

Author: Annabel Gillings

Publisher: Haus Publishing

ISBN: 9781904950448

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 196

View: 5529

Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-59) was the outstanding example of an entrepreneurial Victorian engineer, seen at his most memorable in front of the chains used to launch the Great Eastern. His father, the French-born engineer Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849), invented the tunnelling shield and with it constructed the world?'s first underwater tunnel, 366m long, under the Thames between Wapping and Rotherhithe; it is still in use as part of London?'s underground. The younger Brunel was appointed resident engineer of the project at the age of 19. In 1833, when he was 27, he became chief engineer to the Great Western railway, building the line from Paddington to Bristol. His design for the new Clifton suspension bridge and had been accepted in 1831. The boldest of his many endeavours were his three great ships, each the largest in the world when launched. The Great Western, a wooden paddle steamer, was the first steamship to be build specifically for the Atlantic; she made her inaugural crossing in 1838 in 15 days (the small Sirius had been by a whisker the first to steam across, reaching New York the previous day after a journey of 19 days). The iron-hulled Great Britain was launched in Bristol in 1843 and is now back there. The Great Eastern (1858) was a monster which almost literally killed Brunel. It was another half century before any ship exceeded her length of 211m or her displacement of 22,500 tons. She proved almost impossible to launch and then had an unsatisfactory career crossing the Atlantic (so much coal had to be carried that there was insufficient room for the intended 4000 passengers). She only came into her own when laying the Transatlantic telegraph cable in 1865.Brunel was spared the pain of much of this saga; he suffered a stroke on board the ship just before her maiden voyage.

Brunel

2013-05-23

Architecture

Author: Steven Brindle

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 1780226489

Category: Architecture

Page: 208

View: 2127

A celebration of the life and engineering achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by two of the world's foremost authorities. In his lifetime, Isambard Kingdom Brunel towered over his profession. Today, he remains the most famous engineer in history, the epitome of the volcanic creative forces which brought about the Industrial Revolution - and brought modern society into being. Brunel's extraordinary talents were drawn out by some remarkable opportunities - above all his appointment as engineer to the new Great Western Railway at the age of 26 - but it was his nature to take nothing for granted, and to look at every project, whether it was the longest railway yet planned, or the largest ship ever imagined, from first principles. A hard taskmaster to those who served him, he ultimately sacrificed his own life to his work in his tragically early death at the age of 53. His legacy, though, is all around us, in the railways and bridges that he personally designed, and in his wider influence. This fascinating new book draws on Brunel's own diaries, letters and sketchbooks to understand his life, times, and work.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

2016-04-15

Transportation

Author: Colin Maggs

Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited

ISBN: 144564097X

Category: Transportation

Page: 336

View: 1638

A major new biography of Britain's greatest engineer, the visionary Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Memoir of the Life of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel

1862

Civil engineering

Author: Richard Beamish

Publisher: London, Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts

ISBN: N.A

Category: Civil engineering

Page: 412

View: 2768

Covering the whole of Marc Isambard Brunel's life, the chapters of this memoir include Insurrection in St. Domingo; Miss Kingdom imprisoned; and Brunel's claims to be the author of the block machinery vindicated. The full range of his inventions and works are covered as well as his personal life.

Brunel: pocket GIANTS

2014-02-03

Biography & Autobiography

Author: Eugene Byrne

Publisher: The History Press

ISBN: 0750955252

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 128

View: 7015

In a BBC poll in 2002, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was voted the second-greatest Briton of all time, only eclipsed by Churchill. It's often claimed that that through his ships, bridges, tunnels and railways Brunel played a critical role in creating the modern world. In the soaring ambitions of the Victorian age, nobody thought bigger than Brunel. Never tied to a dusty office, he crammed enough work, adventure and danger into a single year to last a lesser person a lifetime. He was also a brilliant showman, a flamboyant personality and charmer who time and again succeeded in convincing investors to finance schemes which seemed impossible. Brunel made plenty of mistakes, some of them ruinously expensive. But he also designed and built several structures which are still with us to this day. For these we have to thank a man who was famously described as ‘in love with the impossible’.