Brunel in Devon

The name Isambard Kingdom Brunel was familiar to me as a child as I grew up in Clifton in Bristol, home of the iconic Brunel Clifton Suspension Bridge, although Brunel did not live to see it, as it was completed after his death. The unusual name Isambard is derived from the old German Isanbert meaning glittering iron, and Kingdom is his mother Sophia’s maiden name. Sophia Kingdom was the daughter of William Kingdom, an army and navy contractor in Plymouth, and she was the youngest of a family of 16. His father, Marc Isambard Brunel, was a French engineer and is most famous for the construction of the Thames Tunnel. Isambard was born at Number 1 Britain Street in Portsmouth and had two older sisters, Sophia and Emma - the three children would probably have been bilingual. At age 20 he began work in his father’s office in charge of the Thames Tunnel at Rotherhithe. It was the start of an extraordinary and diverse career, but in this article, I will concentrate on his engineering successes and failures in Devon.

In 1836 at the age of 30, Brunel married Mary Horsley, 23, eldest daughter of composer and organist William Horsley. Brunel had declared that he would marry a woman with money and musical talent; Mary was the family beauty and rich but not musical, although the family was artistic. Her brother John was a friend of Isambard and an artist – he painted pictures of Isambard and Mary. Isambard was also an artist with great aesthetic taste as shown in his architecture, engineering and garden design. The Brunels established a home at 18 Duke Street Westminster and had three children, Isambard, Henry and Florence. Brunel enjoyed entertaining his children with conjuring tricks, but in 1843 he accidentally swallowed a half sovereign which lodged in his windpipe. He designed a board which rotated on two pivots and strapped himself to the board so that the coin was dislodged by centrifugal force.

Mary had a very grand style and was nicknamed the Duchess of Kensington. Brunel had fine furniture and paintings in his house and Mary had beautiful dresses and jewellery to show Brunel’s success. He worked up to twenty hours a day in his office at their house, though he was often away on business. They had 30 staff and Mary was a popular hostess, entertaining London society at their home which became an oasis of culture to which Brunel occasionally returned. He was usually working on many projects at once which he designed, engineered and managed through contractors. His life was stressful, involving high risk novel projects, new technology, investors and funding - he also smoked 40 cigars a day.

Brunel was appointed chief engineer to the Great Western Railway in 1833 and started surveying the route and raising funds. He travelled between his projects in a horse-drawn Britska, which he had designed to include a drawing board and cigar storage – he often worked and slept in it too. The Great Western Railway Bill had failed to specify the distance between the rails, although 4’8” was standard at the time. In 1836 Brunel argued that a broad gauge of 7’01/4” would enable a faster, smoother ride and the board accepted his proposal. Broad gauge performed well but there was the inconvenience of goods and passengers transferring between trains of different gauges. In 1876 all railways were changed to standard gauge. Brunel was appointed engineer to the South Devon Railway in 1843. In 1846 he argued that steam engines were inadequate for the steep gradients beyond Newton Abbot near Totnes and around Dartmoor. He proposed a novel atmospheric system moved by atmospheric (vacuum) traction which would be more efficient than steam engines. The system proved to be a failure, mainly because the leather flap valves in the pipe failed to create a reliable vacuum and the pumping stations were inadequate for the diameter of the pipes. The trains often broke down and third-class passengers were then expected to get out and push the carriages. Brunel and other investors lost a lot of money and the system was completely abandoned in 1848, just one year after it had opened. The pumping station at Starcross is a remnant of the atmospheric railway.

In the 1840s Brunel took his family on holidays in the Torquay area and rented several houses. He decided this was the area he wanted to retire to and bought up land around Watcombe. He helped the architect and garden designer to design the house and grounds and enjoyed laying out the gardens. He aspired to a place in the country as a symbol of his success, but sadly did not live to use it, and it was sold after his death.

In 1846 Brunel was employed as engineer for the Royal Albert Bridge to take trains over the Tamar to Cornwall. His first design was for a suspension bridge but at 1100 feet it was thought to be too long for this type of bridge. The foundations took three years to build and it cost £230,000. Brunel used some of the chains from the stalled construction of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. It was opened, with his name on the portals, in 1859, the year Brunel died, and remains a lasting tribute to his engineering success.

Brunel was the greatest civil engineer of the early 19th century, famous for his pioneering engineering achievements. He was possessed with grandeur, and everything he did was outsize, brilliant and radical. He built a timber viaduct over the Walkham Valley which was spectacular in its day but no longer survives. He also built many wooden viaducts in Cornwall which have not survived. In Devon his greatest achievements were the Great Western Railway and associated bridges and viaducts which connected Devon to the UK via Exeter, Bristol and London. The Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash, connecting Devon to Cornwall, is thought to be one of his masterpieces. Other major engineering achievements in the West Country included the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Great Western ship. Apart from his great engineering works there are many memorials to Brunel in Devon including a statue at Saltash and one in Plymouth, where in both places there are roads named after him. Brunel’s true genius was in convincing financiers to back his risky projects and encouraging workers to maintain high standards which ensured their success. He said that ‘Besides being ingenious engineers should be brave’.

By Dr Ann Pulsford