Biography: The publication of a book on Isambard Kingdom Brunel is timely as this is the bicentenary of his birth. He died in September 1859 at the age of 53, writes John McBratney.
While it is undoubtedly hyperbole to claim that he was "the man who built the world" (as the subtitle asserts) he remains a figure of immense importance and a symbol of the inventiveness and confidence of the Victorian age.
As Cruickshank points out in his foreword Brunel was a contemporary of that other great symbol of the Victorian era, Charles Dickens. He was born just after the British had won a great naval victory over the French and "the triumphant fleet was composed of ships built of oak, powered by wind and essentially little changed from warships of 300 years earlier.
The man made world . . . was wrought of brick, timber or stone and most goods and people travelled across the land using horsepower.
By the time Brunel died all this had changed . . ." His contribution to that change was pivotal. He had the good fortune to have as a father Marc Brunel, who was also a man of great inventive ability, even if his business skills did not match. From an early age Brunel demonstrated that he had a fertile but practical mind and after training for two years in France he joined his father’s business which was involved in an unlikely array of engineering projects, including a boring mill, paddle tugs for the River Rhine and a sawmill in Trinidad.
Brunel’s first main task was in assisting his father to try to build a tunnel under the Thames between Rotherhithe and Wapping. However his life changed in 1829 when he moved to Bristol. There, his initial involvement was with the Clifton Bridge, which although begun in 1832, was abandoned and not completed until after his death in a somewhat altered form.
However more importantly, the movers and shakers of Bristol wanted to build a railway to London in order to try to protect its trade base. After three years of various engineering activities, Brunel was appointed engineer to the fledgling railway company and so became responsible for designing what became the entire Great Western Railway, including the London route.
He was 26 years old. While there were undoubtedly setbacks to come, his career was now set on the course which would make him famous.
While the bridges fit within the ambit of railways, his adventure into the design of ships demonstrates his breathtaking self-confidence. He built three ships and each was a vast undertaking in relation to what had been achieved previously in relation to ship design.
The third and last SS Great Eastern was to be six times the size of his own SS Great Britain which had itself been the biggest ship in the world in 1845. While he did see her launched he died before she came into operation. She was a masterpiece of design but from almost every aspect "the ship was too big, too far ahead of her time". She was "his ultimate triumph, and his greatest folly".
Brunel was a workaholic but seems to have been attentive as a son, as a husband and as a father for the time in which he lived. However it is difficult to imagine how he could have found much time for his family given the hours he worked. The book’s numerous illustrations are splendid and highlight the achievements of Brunel.
The written material, with the exception of the foreword, is pedestrian in comparison. However the illustrations redeem the book as they display his breathtaking creative genius and his very prominent part in the Victorian era.
John McBratney is the chairman of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Co Monaghan, and is a barrister
Brunel: The Man who Built the World. By Steven Brindle, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 287pp. £25