I. K. Brunel — Exploding the Myth

Abstract

There has been an extraordinary outpouring of interest in Isambard Kingdom Brunel in recent years, particularly this bicentenary year. There have been books, papers, articles, talks, commemorative events, postage stamps, coins and a lot else besides, with much exaggerated rhetoric about the man and his career. The number of television programmes has been extraordinary, as producers, notorious for their skin-deep, subjective examination of topics, pursue their iconic hero. They exert a major infl uence on public perception. There is no doubting that Brunel was a talented, hard-working and professional engineer, but some extraordinary claims have recently been made in his name. Commentators assert that he was: ‘the greatest rail engineer of all time’,1 ‘the greatest engineer’,2 ‘the greatest Briton’,3 and, to quote the title of the new biography of Brunel, he was ‘The Man who built the World’.4 Brunel’s new-found fame has elevated him into a lofty position, whilst his infl uential contemporaries, particularly George Stephenson, Robert Stephenson and Joseph Locke, are now largely omitted from public consciousness. Even members of the Institution of Civil Engineers with on-line queries are now encouraged on their web-site to ‘Ask Brunel’. However, I will argue that he was but one of the many talented, innovative and hard-working engineers in that ‘golden era’ of British engineering in the mid-19th century.