Marc Isambard Brunel, engraving by G. Metzeroth, circa 1880

Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, FRS (April 25, 1769 – December 12, 1849) was a French-born engineer who settled in the United Kingdom. He preferred the name Isambard, but is generally known to history as Marc to avoid confusion with his more famous son Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Image File history File links Marc_isambard_brunel. ... Image File history File links Marc_isambard_brunel. ... The premises of the Royal Society in London (first four properties only). ... April 25 is the 115th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (116th in leap years). ... 1769 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... December 12 is the 346th day (347th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 19 days remaining. ... 1849 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Brunel before the launching of the Great Eastern. ...

The younger son of a farmer in Normandy, initially he was set to train for the priesthood, but had a more practical mind, and became a naval officer cadet instead. In 1793, after the French Revolution, he fled to the United States, becoming chief engineer of New York. In 1799 he moved to Britain, which presented greater opportunities for the development of mass-production machinery, and which was the home of his future wife Sophia Kingdom, whom he had met in France. His initial success was with a method for production of rigging blocks (pulleys) for the navy at the Portsmouth Block Mills - the first genuine industrial production line: (his collaborators included Samuel Bentham and Henry Maudslay). Normandy Invasion]] or Operation Overlord that began on June 6, 1944, which today is also known as D-Day. ... 1793 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Liberty Leading the People, a painting by Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830 but which has come to be generally accepted as symbolic of French popular uprisings against the monarchy in general and the French Revolution in particular. ... Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York) is the most populous city in the state of New York and the entire United States. ... 1799 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Pulleys on a ship. ... The Portsmouth Block Mills form part of the Portsmouth Dockyard at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, and were built during the Napoleonic Wars to supply the British Royal Navy with pulley blocks. ... Samuel Bentham Sir Samuel Bentham (11 January 1757 - 31 May 1831) was a noted mechanical engineer credited with numerous innovations, particularly related to naval architecture, including weapons. ... Henry Maudslay. ...

He was a notable mechanical engineer, and did much to develop saw milling machinery, undertaking contracts for the British Government at Chatham and Woolwich dockyards, building on his experience at the Portsmouth Block Mills. He built himself a sawmill at Battersea, London (burnt down in 1814), and designed sawmills for entrepreneurs. He developed machinery for mass producing soldiers' boots, but before this could reach full production demand ceased due to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Brunel subsequently was bankrupted and served time in the King's Bench prison in Southwark. The United Kingdom is a unitary state and a democratic constitutional monarchy. ... Location within the British Isles Chatham is an English town that developed around an important naval dockyard on the east bank of the River Medway in the county of Kent. ... Woolwich is a town in south-east London, England in the London Borough of Greenwich, on the south side of the River Thames, though the tiny exclave of North Woolwich (which is now part of the London Borough of Newham) is on the north side of the river. ... Battersea is a place in the London Borough of Wandsworth. ... Notice of closure stuck on the door of a computer store the day after its parent company, Granville Technology Group Ltd, declared bankruptcy (strictly, administration - see text) in the UK. Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay their creditors. ...

a plaque commemorating the Brunels

His most notable achievement was the Thames Tunnel, which was built for horsedrawn traffic but due to bankruptcy was first used by pedestrians, and now carries the East London Line of the London Underground. In the construction of the tunnel he pioneered the use of the tunnelling shield, a moving framework which protected workers from tunnel collapses when working in water-bearing ground. The shield was designed by his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by Maudslays who also supplied the steam pumps. The tunnel was authorised by Parliament in 1824, and started in 1825, but due to technical and financial difficulties was not opened until 1843. He was knighted for his contribution to engineering in 1841 and had been made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1814. Like his son, he is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Download high resolution version (1760x1168, 499 KB)Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Marc Isambard Brunel memorial plaque seen in Londons Transport Museum, 2004-09-04. ... Download high resolution version (1760x1168, 499 KB)Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Marc Isambard Brunel memorial plaque seen in Londons Transport Museum, 2004-09-04. ... Interior of the Thames Tunnel, mid-19th century The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel, 35 feet wide and 1,300 feet long, beneath the River Thames in London, between Rotherhithe and Wapping. ... The East London Line is a line of the London Underground, coloured orange on the Tube map. ... The nickname Tube comes from the circular tube-like tunnels through which the small-profile trains travel. ... A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used in the excavation of tunnels through soil that is too soft or fluid to remain stable during the time it takes to line the tunnel with a support structure of concrete or steel. ... Insert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text here:This article is about the legislative institution. ... 1824 was a leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1843 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... take you to calendar). ... The premises of the Royal Society in London (first four properties only). ... 1814 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery, located in Kensal Green, London, England, was incorporated in 1832, and is the oldest of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries still in operation. ...

External links

• Biography

References

• Jonathan Coad, The Portsmouth Block Mills : Bentham, Brunel and the start of the Royal Navy's Industrial Revolution, 2005, ISBN 1873592876
• Harold Bagust, The Greater Genius? A Biography of Marc Isambard Brunel, 2006, ISBN 0711031754