Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Transcription

1 Isambard Kingdom Brunel, ( ) (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery Collection) Isambard Kingdom Brunel I K Brunel was born in Portsea, Hampshire in His French born father, Marc, was already a respected civil engineer. Isambard first worked with him, but soon became established as one of the greatest engineers of the nineteenth century. He completed many important and pioneering projects before his early death in 1859, his health weakened by a heavy workload. Isambard Brunel is famed for his great engineering achievements, including tunnels, bridges, railways, dock schemes and large ocean going ships. Many of his ideas were new. His buildings, structures and other works were often at the cutting edge of both civil engineering and material technology. Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the chains of the GREAT EASTERN Photographed by Robert Howlett (Courtesy: National Portrait Gallery, London and Brunel 200)

2 Brunel 200 Portrait of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, c1843 Painting by John Callcott Horsley. (Courtesy: Bristol Museums Galleries and Archives and Brunel 200) This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Across Britain, Brunel 200 events will celebrate the life and work of one of the world's most important and best-known civil engineers. The achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel were recognised again, just a few years ago, when British television viewers voted him second to Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a national poll to find the greatest ever 'Great Briton'. Highlighted here are some of Brunel's most famous engineering achievements, with the focus on his work in Plymouth and the South West of England.

3 Millbay Station, Plymouth - Brunel's railway terminus, c1890 Pictured here with the broad gauge tracks still in use. (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery Collection. Ref. Rugg Monk ) Brunel & Plymouth It is possible that Isambard Kingdom Brunel's mother, Sophia Kingdom, was Plymouth born, and that his grandparents were married in Plymouth too. Brunel was a regular visitor to Plymouth and Devon in the 1840s, when he surveyed and engineered the South Devon Railway that would link Exeter to Plymouth. In the 1850s Brunel took the railway on into Cornwall, designing the famous Royal Albert Bridge over the River Tamar. Before his death he was also in charge of building the first railway linking Plymouth and Tavistock. In 1845 Brunel's SS GREAT BRITAIN came to Plymouth on her maiden voyage. He also drew-up a proposal for improving Plymouth's medieval harbour. Soon after, Brunel became the engineer in charge of building Plymouth's new Millbay Docks. Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge, opened in alongside the Tamar Road Suspension Bridge, opened in 1961 Brunel's scheme for the Great Western Docks at Millbay, Plymouth, c1851 (Plymouth & West Devon Record Office Collection)

4 Brunel's Bridges Raising the second truss-span of the Royal Albert Bridge, to carry the railway across the River Tamar, Plymouth The bridge has two main spans each of 139 metres (455ft), with a clearance to the water of 30metres (100ft). Chains suspended from the wrought iron cylindrical trusses support the track-bed decking. (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery Collection. Ref. Rugg Monk ) Most of the one hundred or so bridges that Brunel designed were railway bridges. Some were simple under or over bridges, but there were also elegant bridges across the River Thames, and impressive timber viaducts spanning deep river valleys in the South West. The famous Royal Albert Bridge, opened in 1859, still carries the railway west from Plymouth over the River Tamar into Cornwall. Brunel built several more traditional suspension bridges, including the Clifton Bridge, spanning the Avon Gorge at Bristol. Work began at Clifton in the early 1830s, but was interrupted and not completed until Brunel's pedestrian suspension bridge over the Thames at Hungerford, London, was shortlived - being largely replaced by a railway bridge in the 1860s. Clifton Suspension Bridge, over the Avon Gorge, Bristol Completed five years after Brunel's death. The bridge spans 214m (700ft) at a height of 75m (246ft). Brunel's railway bridge over the River Thames at Maidenhead, built 1839 The two, low but elegant, brickwork arches each span 39 metres (128ft). The bridge was widened in and still carries trains at 125 miles per hour.

5 The opening of Brunel's Great Western Docks at Millbay, Plymouth, February 1857 The cable ship ELBA enters dry dock via the Inner Dock Basin, as featured in the Illustrated London News article celebrating the occasion. (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery Collection) Brunel's Dock Works Whilst convalescing in Bristol, in 1828, Isambard Brunel drew his first design for a bridge across the City's Avon Gorge. He later won the competition to build the bridge. Having become well known in the local area, Brunel became engineer to the Bristol Dock Company. Between he designed many improvements to the Bristol Floating Harbour and the port's related lock and river systems. He was also consulted over dock schemes at Monkwearmouth in Sunderland, at Cardiff and Milford Haven in South Wales, and at Brentford, London. Brunel designed and built a new dock in Plymouth - linked directly to his railway that connected to Exeter, Bristol and London. Plymouth's Great Western Docks, at Millbay, were opened in February Brunel's Great Western Docks at Millbay, Plymouth, c1865 (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery Collection. Ref.AR ) Brunel's proposal to install a lock gate and create a floating (non-tidal) dock at Plymouth's Sutton Harbour, 1845 The Admiralty rejected this scheme. A lock gate was eventually installed almost 150 years later. (Plymouth & West Devon Record Office Collection)

6 Brunel's Railways Ivybridge Station and Viaduct, near Plymouth Brunel's railways in the South West were particularly renowned for their high wooden trestle viaducts - fifty of them carrying the railway through Cornwall. (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery Collection. Ref.AR ) During his lifetime Brunel engineered some twenty-five railway lines. In 1833 he was appointed to survey the route for the Great Western Railway, linking London and Bristol. Brunel chose the broad gauge at 7ft (2.2 m) in preference to what would become the British standard gauge of 4ft 8 1/2 ins. (1.55m). This railway line opened in Brunel was soon involved with extending the railway south into Devon, first to Exeter and, by , on into Plymouth. In the late 1850s Brunel continued the railway on into Cornwall. He also engineered a railway from Plymouth to Tavistock. It was on the route of the South Devon Railway that Brunel experimented with his revolutionary Atmospheric Railway System to help power locomotives - an idea that he reluctantly abandoned in Brunel's Railway Goods Shed, Bristol Temple Meads Brunel s involvement ranged from the civil engineering of the railway itself, to the design of station buildings and train sheds. He even the designed cast iron station lamp columns and lanterns. (From J C Bourne's 'The Great Western Railway'. Courtesy: Brunel 200) Temple Meads Station, the Bristol railway terminus designed by Brunel When it opened in 1841 it was the world's biggest station complex. Brunel's main train shed was 67m long (220ft), with a 22m (72ft) single span timber roof. It survives as a covered car park.

7 Brunel's Ships The PS GREAT WESTERN ( ) - at sea The 1321-ton GREAT WESTERN's first crossing to New York took just 151/2 days - about half the time of rival ships. She mainly sailed out of Liverpool, and crossed the Atlantic 60 times before being broken-up in1857. Brunel's vision was of a steam railway from London to Bristol, connecting to a transatlantic steamship service to America. The first of the three ocean going ships he designed was a large wooden hulled paddle steamer to cross the Atlantic. GREAT WESTERN left Bristol on her maiden voyage in the first steam ship designed for the crossing, and the first to establish a regular transatlantic service. Brunel's SS GREAT BRITAIN was also built in Bristol and sailed on her maiden voyage in At the time, it was the world's largest, most powerful ship - the first iron hulled screw driven 'ocean-liner'. Brunel's last ship, the GREAT EASTERN, was launched in 1858; again the largest vessel then afloat. The GREAT EASTERN was not a success in passenger service but played an important role laying some of the world's first international under-sea telegraph cables. The PS GREAT EASTERN ( ) - building on the River Thames The 18,914-ton GREAT EASTERN had paddle wheels, screw propellers, five funnels, six masts. She was the first ship to have a steering engine and a cellular double bottom. The ship was 210 metres (690ft) long, with a beam of 25 metres (82ft) - unequalled in size for 40 years. The SS GREAT BRITAIN (1845-to date) - preserved in dry-dock The 3270-ton GREAT BRITAIN became an emigrant ship in 1852, and went on to carry around passengers to Australia. She survived as a coal hulk in the Falkland Islands before her rescue and preservation in Bristol - in the dry dock in which Brunel built the ship. (Photo Mandy Reynolds. Courtesy: SS Great Britain Trust and Brunel 200)

8 Brunel's classical western portal to Box Tunnel The tunnel is 2939metres long, and descends a 1:100 gradient east to west. (From J C Bourne's 'The Great Western Railway'. Courtesy: Brunel 200) Brunel's Tunnels In 1825 Isambard Brunel started working for his father on a pedestrian tunnel beneath the River Thames in London. It was the world's first tunnel to be built under a navigable river, and the first to utilise a 'tunnel shield' to assist the tunnelling work underground. The completion of the Thames Tunnel was held-up due to flooding and a shortage of money. It was finally opened in To speed the route of the new main-line railway between London and Bristol, Brunel chose to tunnel for a distance of two miles under Box Hill in Wiltshire. Work started in 1836 and took five years to complete. About 100 workmen died during construction. Entrance to the Thames Tunnel, between Rotherhithe and Wapping, London The front-piece from a Victorian stereoscopic souvenir booklet. The 395m (1300ft) long tunnel was converted to railway use in It is still in use today. (Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery Collection. Ref.AR ) Inside Box Tunnel, Wiltshire When the tunnel was joined in the middle, there was less than a 5cm error in alignment. (From J C Bourne's 'The Great Western Railway'. Courtesy: Brunel 200)