Brunel's Three Ships

Muriel Miller, Bernard Dumpleton

Description

Few men have rightly earned the title of genius, but one must surely be Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In his short lifetime he pioneered the railways, built bridges, tunnels and termini. He also built three ships - theGreat Western, Great Britain and Great Eastern. Each one contributed more to the development of maritime engineering than any other vessel built before or since. This book tells the story of Brunel and his three ships, from the time that the Great Western developed from a dream to a reality, until the recent years. In 1970 the Great Britain, the only one of the three surviving, was rescued from a windswept cove in the Falkland Islands and brought home to Britain. She was restored in Bristol, in the same dock in which she was built, and she now looks exactly as she did in 1843. There she will stay, a proud example of British engineering in the nineteenth century and a fitting memorial to her brilliant designer.

Sujets

• Energie & environnement
• Cultural Studies
• Bridges
• General
• Civil engineering
• Engineering
• Technology
• General officer
• 19th century
• Sciences et techniques
• Power Resources

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841508580
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

BRUNEL S THREE SHIPS
Also by Bernard Dumpleton
THE STORY OF THE PADDLE STEAMER
BRUNEL S THREE SHIPS
BY
BERNARD DUMPLETON
AND
MURIEL MILLER
ISBN 1-84150-800-4/Electronic ISBN 1-84150-858-6
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
BERNARD DUMPLETON AND MURIEL MILLER
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission.
Set 12 on 13 point IntertypeBaskerville
Printed and bound by Antony Rowe Ltd., Eastbourne
LIST OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE - ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL
BOOK ONE - THE GREAT WESTERN
1
BIRTH OF AN IDEA
2
SHE MOVES
3
DESTINATION NEW YORK
BOOK TWO - THE GREAT BRITAIN
1
INNOVATIONS
2
MAJESTY AND MISHAPS
3
THE ISLAND THAT GOT IN THE WAY
4
THE HALCYON DAYS
BOOK THREE - THE GREAT EASTERN
1
A LEVIATHAN ON THE THAMES
2
A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS
3
CABLES, CARNIVALS - AND COMMINUTION

EPILOGUE - ONE CAME HOME

DIMENSIONS AND TECHNICAL DETAILS OF THE THREE SHIPS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Frontispiece
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Fig. 1
The Great Western, forerunner of the modern ocean liner
Fig. 2a
The Great Western leaves Cumberland Basin
Fig. 2b
The Great Western in mid-Atlantic
Fig. 3
The Great Western bound for New York on her maiden voyage
Fig. 4
Sailing notice of the Great Western s maiden voyage
Fig. 5a
The Great Britain, first screw-propelled iron ship to cross the Atlantic
Fig. 5b
Sectional view of Great Britain s engine room
Fig. 6a
The Great Britain aground at Dundrum Bay
Fig. 6b
The Great Britain refloated at Dundrum Bay
Fig. 7
The Great Britain with two funnels and four masts
Fig. 8
The Great Eastern - Leviathan of the seas
Fig. 9a
An impression, on fine linen, of the Great Eastern
Fig. 9b
The crew of the stern checking drum before the first attempt to launch the Great Eastern
Fig. 10a
View of the Great Eastern s upper deck
Fig. 10b
The Great Eastern s funnel after the explosion
Fig. 10c
The Great Eastern s screw engines, built by James Watt Co.
Fig. 11a
Cable laying machinery showing the dynamo-meter
Fig. 11b
Another view of the cable laying machinery on board the Great Eastern
Fig. 12a
The Great Eastern sets out on her first cable laying voyage
Fig. 12b
The Great Eastern beached at Liverpool
Fig. 13a
The Great Britain lying abandoned in Sparrow Cove
Fig. 13b
The Great Britain comes home
Fig. 14a
The Great Britain s prow during restoration
Fig. 14b
The prow restored
Fig. 15a
The top deck, looking forward
Fig. 15b
The main deck, looking aft
Fig. 16a
The 1857 main mast, showing sectional construction
Fig. 16b
The Great Britain s new propellor
Frontispiece- ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL
INTRODUCTION
D URING the time of the Industrial Revolution many great scientists and inventors gained fame, and their names have passed into history and become household words. Men like James Watt, the Stephensons and Faraday- their inventions and discoveries were the life blood of the engineers of the day. Every new technical innovation was seized upon and developed with an enthusiasm which is sadly lacking in modern times.
One such man was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and no other man diversified his activities or packed so much into a lifetime as this dynamic genius.
Brunel was born at exactly the right time. The Victorian era was probably the most progressive in our history, and every new idea, however far-fetched, could be sure of finding a backer, especially if its proposer was as persuasive and enthusiastic as the Little Giant . He could have found money for a steam-driven rocket to the moon, for in his time some of his ideas were no less fantastic.
As a railway engineer he was one of the best, taking the line from London to the West Country and at the same time designing the tunnels, bridges, cuttings and railway stations that went with it. Bristol became his favourite city, and he gave it its finest structure-the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Almost as a sideline he designed dockyards, experimented with gas engines and built an atmospheric railway. And as if this wasn t enough he built three ships.
It was in this sphere, more than any other, that Brunel excelled as an innovator. Each ship was revolutionary, and set the patterns for all subsequent vessels; a ship that could steam to New York, a ship built of iron and propelled by a screw, and to crown his achievements-the biggest ship the world had ever known.
In this book we trace the history of those ships, and follow the fortunes of Brunel and the men who had faith in him. We have tried to recapture the enthusiasm of those exciting times, when Britain was the world s laboratory. Almost every day, it seems, there was something new to cheer-or wonder at. For the gamblers there were fortunes to be won-or lost. For the workers it meant employment.
But the lowliest citizens who waved their flags at the dockside and the wealthy financiers who puffed nervously at their cigars had one thing in common. They had the time to stand and stare, to marvel at the ingenuity of their fellowmen, and to recognise the importance of that age. It was a common bond that has no parallel today.
Bernard Dumpleton
Muriel Miller
St. Albans. 1974
Prologue
ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL
I SAMBARD K INGDOM B RUNEL was born on April 9th, 1806, at Portsea, Hampshire. His father was a Frenchman, and it was in France that Marc Isambard Brunel met Sophia Kingdom, the daughter of a Plymouth naval contractor. She had been sent to France to learn the language in the household of Captain Fran ois Carpentier in Rouen. Also in that household was Brunel, sheltering from the revolutionary republican forces, for Marc was a strong Royalist and the French Revolution was at its height. In those violent and troubled surroundings their romance blossomed, but as the Reign of Terror spread, Brunel was forced to flee to America, and Sophia returned to England.
Marc Brunel spent six years in America, where his engineering skills developed until he became Chief Engineer for New York.
Throughout that time he corresponded with Sophia Kingdom, and it was his love for her, coupled with his desire to further his engineering ambitions in England, that led him to leave the country of his adoption. He landed in Falmouth in March 1799, and in November of that year he and Sophia were married in London. They went to live at Portsea where two daughters were born to them before they were delivered of their first, and only, son.
Young Isambard began to show, at a very early age, that he had inherited his father s talents. By the time that he was six he had mastered Euclid, and his father gave every encouragement to his drawing ability. He sent the lad to a private school in Hove, where Isambard demonstrated another of his father s unique gifts. On several occasions Marc Brunel had shown extraordinary powers of observation in detecting faulty designs or workmanship in architectural structures. Once he predicted that a suspension bridge over the Seine would collapse, and it did.
Isambard amazed his schoolmates by predicting that a new building in Hove would fall, and a few days later the building was in ruins.
At the age of fourteen, Brunel was sent to study at the College of Caen in Normandy, and later to the Lyc e Henri-Quatre in Paris. His education was completed when he served an apprenticeship under the great Louis Breguet, the master craftsman in the field of chronometers and scientific instruments. No finer tutor could have been found to bring out the natural engineering talents of the young Brunel, and when he returned to England at the age of sixteen he immediately went into his father s office in London. He also worked in the engineering firm of Maudslay, Sons and Field, thus continuing an association started by his father which was to last throughout his lifetime.
Isambard Brunel was more than just an assistant to his father. In addition to his skills he had inherited his father s forceful personality, and more and more he began to influence his father s projects.
Marc Brunel was, of course, delighted with his son s progress and when, in 1824, he embarked upon his greatest project, Isambard was to play a major role.
A tunnel under the Thames had been advocated as early as 1798, by Ralph Dodd, the engineer of the Grand Surrey Canal. No work was done, but the idea was revised in 1802 by Richard Vazie. Vazie s tunnel was planned to stretch 1,200ft from Rotherhithe to Limehouse, and in
1805 a company was formed to back the scheme. Several eminent engineers, including John Rennie and Richard Trevithick, acted as consultants, and it was Trevithick who came nearest to success. Using skilled Cornish miners he drove a heading to within 200ft of the total length before the tunnel collapsed, fortunately without loss of life. The project was abandoned, but Marc Brunel had followed its progress with interest. While working in Chatham Dockyard he had observed the tunnelling action of worms in ships timbers, and from this he evolved the idea of a tunnelling shield which he patented in 1818.
In 1823, Marc Brunel was persuaded to discuss his idea with a group of influential businessmen. As a result of that meeting, the Thames Tunnel Company was formed, and Marc was appointed engineer at a salary of 1,000 a year. The tunnelling shield was built by Maudslay, Sons and Field. It consisted of 12 cast-iron frames, each 21ft 4in high and 3ft wide. Three working levels, on each of which one man could excavate, were set one above the other. The working face was covered by a series of heavy oak planks, which were held against the face by jacks. The system of excavation was that each plank was removed in turn and the area exposed was dug out to a depth of 4 in