THE PROPERTY OF THE GREAT GREAT-GRANDSON OF ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL (1806-1859) ISAMBARD KINGDOM BRUNEL Arguably the greatest and most innovative engineer of the nineteenth century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born on 9 April 1806, the son of Marc Brunel, a distinguished engineer himself who had fled Paris after the French Revolution and eventually settled in England in 1799. After finishing his education in France, young I.K.B. returned home in 1822 to begin work in his father's office, soon after which the family moved to Blackfriars when Brunel Senior was appointed Engineer to the Thames Tunnel project. In 1829 I.K.B. received his first significant commission and, the following year, won the competition to design the bridge over the Avon Gorge at Clifton (Bristol). The next two decades were his most productive and saw the building and triumphant opening of the Great Western Railway, the completion - after many years of difficulties - of the Thames Tunnel, the creation of two revolutionary steamships (the Great Western and then the Great Britain), and the commencement of the famous Royal Albert Bridge over the Tamar at Saltash. By comparison the 1850's were filled with disappointments and overshadowed by the calamitous problems of the ill-fated Great Eastern which not only broke I.K.B's health but also ruined him financially and undoubtedly contributed to his premature death on 15 September 1859.
I. Tudgay (fl.1836-1865)

Details
I. Tudgay (fl.1836-1865)
The Great Western passing the Bishop's Rock Lighthouse, off the Scilly Isles, outward bound for New York, probably on her maiden voyage in April 1838
signed 'I. Tudgay'
oil on canvas
27 x 38in. (68.5 x 96.5cm.)
Provenance
The Property of the great great-grandson of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) and thence by descent

Lot Essay

In 1835, at the same time as work was beginning on the construction of the Great Western railway from London to Bristol, Brunel turned his attention to the sea. In his view, a regular steamship service from Bristol to New York was the logical extension to his railway across the breadth of England and the resulting ships ushered in a new era of transatlantic travel.

The first of them, Great Western, was laid down in Patterson's Yard, Bristol, in July 1836 and launched exctly a year later. Built of wood, she was 236 feet long, registered at 1,340 tons, and her luxurious appointments included 128 first-class berths. Her two- cylinder Maudslay side-lever engines provided 750 h.p. to her paddles and gave her a cruising speed of 9 knots in calm water. Leaving Bristol on 8 April 1838, she completed her maiden voyage to New York in fifteen days and thus began a highly successful career which was to last eighteen years. More profitable by far than either of Brunel's two other ships, Great Britain and Great Eastern, she was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. in 1847 who ran her on their Southampton -West Indies route until 1855 when she was hired to transport troops during the Crimean War. Released in 1856, she was by then showing her age, deemed unfit for further service and broken up at Vauxhall on the Thames later that same year.

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