Speaker - Ranald Barrie, Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Tue, Aug 15th 2017 at 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm


Club member Ranald Barrie told the assembled group that he had been prompted on reading a biography of Isambard Kingdom Brunel to regard him as something of a hero.

Much like the remainder of the British public, who in recent years had polled Brunel as the second Great Briton of all time behind No1 Winston Churchill.

Brunel, said Ranald, was born in Portsmouth to a French engineer father and English mother. In 1820 at the age of 14 he was sent to study in France and returned two years later to work for his father and begin a career which saw him develop as one of the most talented and innovative engineers in history.

In 1843 a tunnel which Brunel had planned and designed was opened under the River Thames and is still in use today as part of the London Underground system. It was a template for the method of tunnel construction which has become standard.

One of Brunel’s best-known designs, the Clifton Bridge at Bristol, was opened in 1864 only after his death. But until that time, the engineer had been involved in an enormous number of contracts worldwide to build bridges, viaducts, railways, harbours and, of course, ships.

He set up the Great Western Railway with the vision that a passenger could buy one ticket that would take him or her by rail from London to Wales to join a ship and travel to New York. This he achieved with the formation of the Great Western Steamship Company and the construction of the SS Great Western. The ship was a breakthrough in sea travel, a paddle steamer which made 64 Atlantic crossings and was the first ship to be awarded the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing.

Brunel followed that success with the SS Great Britain, the first iron construction instead of wood and propeller driven. It can still be visited today as it is moored in Bristol docks as a tourist attraction.

Brunel went on to invent and build all sorts of constructions like a portable hospital for the Crimean War, transatlantic cabling from Europe to North America and the SS Great Eastern which would sail to and from Australia.

Unsurprisingly, Isambard Kingdom Brunel eventually succumbed in 1858 to illness brought on by overwork. The following year, he collapsed with a stroke on the deck of the SS Great Eastern and died 10 days later, leaving a quite incredible legacy of work behind him.

In proposing a vote of thanks for an excellent talk George McIntosh reckoned all members would now be agreeing with Ranald that Brunel was indeed a genius.

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