TRANSFORMING TRANSPORT
ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL
A master of materials and structures who transformed public transport.
The SS Great Britain now stands on permanent display in Bristol Harbour – a short hop from Dyson's Wiltshire campus.
A great Briton
Brunel is renowned as one of Britain's greatest inventors, with an extensive list of accomplishments. He started building his reputation in 1826, aged 20 years old, helping his father design and construct the Thames Tunnel, the world’s first transport tunnel beneath a navigable waterway.
Connecting cities
Brunel went on to engineer the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London. He personally surveyed the entire route, designing the two major terminals and most of the associated infrastructure, including the nearly two-mile-long Box Tunnel. He positioned it precisely so that each year, on his birthday, the sun would rise at dead centre and shine directly through it – a lasting tribute to the man who made it.
Connecting the world
Brunel’s use of iron was most revolutionary. Before the Great Western Railway was complete, he suggested extending his transport network west – across the Atlantic Ocean. The result, in 1843, was the SS Great Britain, the world’s first iron-hulled ship to use a screw propeller. It was followed by the SS Great Eastern, a revolutionary double iron-hulled ship that laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable.