[Illustration: IK Brunel Signature Painted by J. C. Horsley, R.A.--Engraved by T. O. Barlow.] THE LIFE OF ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL, CIVIL ENGINEER. BY ISAMBARD BRUNEL, B.C.L., OF LINCOLN’S INN; CHANCELLOR OF THE DIOCESE OF ELY. LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1870. PREFACE. I have not attempted to describe the events of my father’s life in chronological order beyond the end of Chapter III., which brings down the narrative to the close of 1835, the year in which the Act was obtained for the Great Western Railway. Chapter IV. contains a general account of my father’s railway works, with the exception of the Bridges, which are described in Chapter VII. The history of the Broad Gauge and of the trial of the Atmospheric System on the South Devon Railway is given in Chapters V. and VI. Chapters VIII.--XIII. contain an account of my father’s labours for the advancement of Ocean Steam Navigation. It will be noted that these chapters cover the same period as Chapters IV.--VII., namely, from 1835, the year of the commencement of the Great Western Railway and the ‘Great Western’ Steam-ship, to 1859, the year of his death, in which the Saltash Bridge and the ‘Great Eastern’ were both completed. Chapters VII. (on the Bridges) and XIV. (on the Docks) have been written by Mr. William Bell, for many years a member of my father’s engineering staff; and in regard to Chapter V. (on the Broad Gauge), I have to acknowledge assistance rendered me by Mr. William Pole, F.R.S. For the Note on the Carbonic Acid Gas Engine which follows Chapter I., I am indebted to Mr. William Hawes; and for Chapter VI. (on the Atmospheric System) to Mr. Froude, F.R.S. I have also printed letters, written to me at my request, relating to various incidents in my father’s life. The assistance I received in the preparation of the chapters on Steam Navigation from my friend the late Captain Claxton, R.N., has been referred to in the note to p. 234. I have throughout availed myself of my brother’s professional knowledge. I have been compelled, in order to bring the work within the compass of a single volume, to omit much that would otherwise have been inserted, and I must therefore be held responsible for the general arrangement of those parts which have been contributed by others, as well as for the chapters which I have written myself. Lastly, I desire gratefully to thank those friends who, by supplying me with materials and revising the proof sheets, have helped me in my endeavour to make this book, as far as possible, an accurate record of my father’s life, written in the spirit of which he would have approved. I. B. 18 DUKE STREET, WESTMINSTER: _November_, 1870. CONTENTS. PAGE LIST OF REPORTS AND OTHER ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS xvii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxvii CHAPTER I. _EARLY LIFE._ A.D. 1806--1828.