Who are you looking for?Famoose.co
Appearance
Text size
Page width
Colour
Discover›Technology
Contents
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Engineer

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Famoose for

Designing ambitious railways, bridges and ocean-going steamships.

SS Great Britain · Royal Albert Bridge

Born
9 April 1806
Birthplace
Portsmouth, England, United Kingdom
Died
15 September 1859

More people

Ada LovelaceRecognising what a programmable machine could do beyond arithmetic.Alan TuringHelping break Enigma and laying foundations for computer science.Grace HopperHelping make computer programming readable in English-like language.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British engineer whose projects pushed the scale and technology of nineteenth-century transport.

Early life

Engineering family

His father Marc was an engineer.

Early training

Studied in Britain and France before working on the Thames Tunnel.

Career

  1. 1820s

    Thames Tunnel

    Worked with his father on the difficult river crossing.

  2. 1833 onward

    Great Western Railway

    Became engineer for the London–Bristol railway.

  3. 1830s–1850s

    Steamships

    Developed increasingly ambitious ships for ocean travel.

Selected projects

SS Great Britain

Combined an iron hull with screw propulsion at a new scale.

Royal Albert Bridge

Created the railway crossing at Saltash.

Great Eastern

Launched an exceptionally large steamship.

Beyond engineering

Setbacks

Several projects suffered major technical or financial difficulties.

Unfinished work

The Clifton Suspension Bridge was completed after his death.

Sources & photo creditLife, career and references ↗

Photo: Robert Howlett. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.