The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-10 00:00:00

THE LATE .MR. BRUNEL AND MR.

_ROBERT ST_EPILENSOX.

At the opening meeting of the Institution of
Civil Engineers, held on Tuesday, the President,
Mr. Joseph Locke, M.P., made the following re-
marks respecting these lately deceased eminent

men :

I cannot permit the occasion of opening a new
session to pass without alluding to the irreparable
loss which the institution has sustained by the
death, during the recess, of its two most honoured
and distinguished members.
In the midst of difficulties of no ordinary kind,
with an ardour rarely equalled, and an application
both of body and mind almost beyond the limits of
physical endurance—in the full pursuit of a great
and cherished idea—Brunel was suddenly struck
down, before he had accomplished the task which
his daring genius had set before him.
Following in the footsteps of his distinguished
parent, Sir Isambard Brunel, his career, even from
its commencement, was remarkable for originality
in the conception of the works confided to him.
As his experience increased, his confidence in his
powers augmented ' • and the Great Western Rail-
way, with its broad gauge line, colossal engines,
large carriages, and bold designs of every descrip-
tion, was carried onward, and ultimately embraced
a wide district of the country. The same feeling
induced in steam navigation the successive con-
struction of the Great Western steamer, the largest
vessel of the time, until superseded by the Great
Britain, which was in its turn eclipsed by the Great
Eastern, the most gigantic experiment of the age.
The Great Ship was Brunel's peculiar child; he
appplied himself to it in a manner which could not
fail to command respect ; and if he did not live to
see its final and successful completion, he saw
enough, in his later hours, to sustain him in the
belief that his idea would ultimately become a
triumphant reality.
The shock which the loss of Brunel created was
yet felt, when we were startled by the announce-
ment that another of our esteemed members had
been summoned from us.
Of that friend r feel it to be a difficult task to
speak without giving way to feelings better fitted
for the closet than a public assembly. Robert Ste-
phenson was the friend of my youth, the companion
of my ripening years, a competitor in the race of
life ; and was as generous as a competitor as he was
firm and faithful as a friend. This will I know find
an echo in the hearts of all around me; and your
feelings will supply that laudation in which it would
seem inappropriate for me to indulge.
Like Brunel,. Robert Stephenson commenced his
professional career under his father, George Ste-
phenson. His early years were devoted to the im-
provement and construction of the locomotive, and
to him we owe the type of those machines, many of
which are now actually in use on our railways.
From the time of our Liverpool and Manchester
Railway—when our joint report contributed in a
great degree to the adoption of the locomotive en-
gine as the means of transport—and of the subse-
quent London and Birmingham line, with its long
Parliamentary contests, its Kilsby Tunnel, and
other difficulties inherent in so new an undertaking
a multitude of other lines followed, in which there
had to be foreseen and provided for numerous diffi-
culties, all of which were met and surmounted with
coolness and consummate skill.
Among these great works may be mentioned the
Royal Border and High,Level Bridges, and more
especially the Conway and Britannia Bridges, which
were the first examples on so vast a scale of the
tubular principle, and the bridges across the St.
Lawrence and the Nile, remarkable alike for their
granduer of conception and successful execution.
To my present hearers, the enumeration of the
works in which Robert Stephenson was engaged
would be as a " twice-told tale;" but we must look
back with interest upon the days of the "Battle of
the Gauges"—the discussions upon the atmospheric
system—and the numerous topics which have been
argued within these walls and elsewhere.
In the enjoyment of a distinguished name and
reputation, Robert Stephenson like Brunel, has
been cut off while still in the middle period of life ;
and although he pursued his profession with perse-
vering energy, and accomplished in it those tri-
umphs of the successful application of a mind well
trained and stored with practical and theoretical
knowledge of various kinds, and achieved some of
the greatest works of art which have been wit-
nessed in our day, he at the same time obtained an
eminence in the scientific world rarely reached by
any practical professional man.
It is not my intention, at this time, to give even
an outline of the works achieved by our two de-
parted friends. Their lives and labours, however,
are before us, and it will be our own fault if we
fail to draw from them useful lessons for our own
guidance. Man is not perfect, and it is not to bi
expected that he should be always successful; and
as in the midst of success we sometimes learn grea
truths before unknown to us, so also we often di;
cover in failure the causes which frustrate our be, t
directed efforts. Our two friends may probabl y
form no exception to the general rule; but judgin g
by the position they had each secured, and by ti .e
universal respect and sympathy which the publ is
has manifested for their loss, and remembering ti .e
brilliant ingenuity of argument, as well as t 1 ie
more homely appeals to their own long experien
often heard in this hall, we are well assured th at
they have not laboured in vain. We, at least, wl io
are benefited by their successes, who feel that a ar
institution has reason to be proud of its associate( m
with such names as Brunel and Stephenson, have • a
duty to perform, and that duty is to honour the it
memory and emulate their example.
I ought to add, in conclusion, that amongst II Le
many private and public bequests made by Robe: rt
Stephenson, is one to this institution of the muuii 1-
cent sum of two thousand pounds.