The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1849-12-18 00:00:00

DEATH OF SIR ISAMBERT BRUNEL,

The Times of Wednesday announces the death of this
distinguished engineer. By birth he was a Frenchman,
but his life and genius were almost wholly devoted to the
invention and construction of works of great public utility
in Great Britaip. Sir I. Brunel was born at Hacqueville,
in Normandy, in the year 1769, and was educated for the
church at the seminary of St. Nician, at Rouen ; but he
soon evinced so strong a predilection for the physical sci-
ences, and so great a genius for mathematics, that the
superior of the establishment recommended that he should
be educated for some other profession. Accordingly at
the proper age he entered the royal navy, and made seve-
ral voyages to the West Indies, and returned home in
1792. At this time the French revolution was at its
height, and Mr. Brunel, entertaining royalist opinions,
was obliged to emigrate to America, where necessity for-
tunately compelled him to follow the natural bent of his
mind, and to adopt the profession of a civil engineer.
After constructing several works there, he determined
upon visiting England, and offered his services to the Bri-
tish government, having matured his plans for making
ship blocks by machinery. Lord Spencer, the first Lord
of the Admiralty, became his patron and friend, and after
much opposition, he was employed to execute his plans in
the Portsmouth dockyards. The block machinery was
finished in 1806, and has continued ever since in full ope-
ration, supplying our fleet with blocks of a very superior
description to those previously in use, and at a very largo
annual saving to the public. It was estimated at the
time, that the saving in the first year amounted to X 24,000
per annum ; and about two-thirds of that sum were
awarded to Mr. Brunel. A few years afterwards he was
employed by government to erect sawmills, upon a new
Principle, in the dockyards of Chatham and Woolwich.
Several other inventions were the offspring of his singu-
larly fertile mind about this time—the circular saw, for
cutting veneers of valuable woods ; and the beautiful
little machine for winding cotton thread into balls, which
greatly extended its consumption.
The visit of the Emperor Alexander to this country,
after the peace, led him to submit to the Empe-or a plan
for making a tunnel under the Neva, where the accumu-
lation of ice, and the suddenness with which it breaks up,
on the termination of winter, rendered the erection of a
bridge a work of great difficulty. This was the origin of
his plan for a tunnel under the Thames, which had been
twice before attempted without success. In 1824, how-
ever, a company was formed, and supported by the Duke of
Wellington, who took from first to last a deep interest in
the work. The work was commenced in the year 1824.
It was stopped more than once during its progress by the
breaking in of the river, and more effectually at last by
the exhausted finances of the company, which never ex-
tended beyond the command of £lBO,OOO. At length,
after the suspension of the work for many years, by a spe-
cial act of Parliament a loan was sanctioned, the Exche-
quer Loan Commissioners advanced the funds necessary,
and it was finished and opened to the public in 1843.
During Lord Melbourne's administration, Mr. Brunel