From The Gentleman’s Magazine, Volume XXVIII, July to December inclusive, 1847
June 30. At Kingsdown, aged 50, John Wallis Hammond, esq. civil engineer.
Page 4 of 5
From the Pioneer and Democrat, January 6, 1860
The leviathan steamship “Great Eastern” is certainly in a bad way. Her history from the outset has been only a series of misfortunes, financial and mechanical, till now several of those who originally embarked in the enterprise have been reduced to bankruptcy, and Brunel and Stevenson, her chief designers, passed have away. The ship herself appears to have demonstrated nothing, or in any degree served to promote nautical science. “Vaulting ambition has o’erleaped itself,” but the result is an occasion only for regret. A Liverpool contemporary suggests that American capitalists should finish the job—a proposition which is not likely to meet with prompt acceptance. The Great Eastern and Atlantic cable are the two huge failures of the century.
Source: The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory), 06 Jan. 1860. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016751/1860-01-06/ed-1/seq-1/>
From the Gazette of the United-States, October 14, 1789
EDINBURGH, JULY 5 (1789)
It is with pleasure we learn, that Mr. Midlar [sic – Patrick Miller] of Dalswinton has lately completed his experiment for ascertaining the steam engine in moving ships. The success fully answered his expectations, and afforded very great pleasure to the spectators present. The result of this experiment must be of the greatest utility to society in general, but more particularly to trading countries which abound in coal or wood.
Source: Gazette of the United-States. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]), 14 Oct. 1789. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/1789-10-14/ed-1/seq-2/>
Extract from Letters From Mr. [Thurlow] Weed . . . No. X., Correspondence of the Albany Evening Journal
From the New York Daily Tribune, August 19, 1843
Monday, July 17
I have been through the Thames Tunnel. This is to London what the Croton Water Works are to New.York, the great achievement of the 19th century. There is nothing at either entrance of the Tunnel, which indicates that you are in the vicinity of this extraordinary improvement. We passed over it in a steamer in the morning, without being aware that other masses of fellow beings were quietly walking through a subterranean passage below us! The visitor is directed “This way to the Tunnel ” by a board on the corner of a street. You descend a winding stone stairway 100 steps, and enter into the Tunnel, which is well lighted with gas, and afforded us a cool pleasant walk, after four hour’s exposure to the sun. The Tunnel has two avenues, each wide enough to allow 12 or 16 persons to walk abreast. Half way through, a printing press is stationed “By Royal Authority,” which is throwing off sheets containing an account of the Tunnel. I told the man I would purchase two of his sheets provided lie would allow me to “pull” them myself. This, upon learning that “I knows the ropes,” as they say at sea, he consented to. I have, therefore, an account of the Thames Tunnel, printed by myself, standing midway between the London and Surry sides of the river, seventy feet below its bed, with Steamers and ships passing directly over my head!
The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard and other contributors, it is heard nationally on Public Radio and produced by Houston Public Media.
Click here for audio of Episode 1405.
Today, two larger-than-life engineers. The University of Houston’s College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
British art historian Kenneth Clark coined the term Heroic Materialism to describe the engineering of the middle 19th century. Those Victorian engineers were melodramatic artists in iron. And Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the grandest artist of them all.
His father, Marc Isambard Brunel, was born in France in 1769. He was an engineer and a royalist who fled the French Revolution. He came to America and worked here for seven years. He even became an American citizen. But he finally moved to England to marry a woman he’d met in France and known for years. His work in England defined the engineering of the post-Industrial-Revolution world. He designed an early suspension bridge, the first floating ship-landing platform, and (boldest of all) a tunnel, the first of its kind, under the Thames river. That one meant inventing a whole array of new supporting technologies.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard and other contributors, it is heard nationally on Public Radio and produced by Houston Public Media.
Click here for audio of Episode 1791.
Today, the Thames Tunnel. The University of Houston’s College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.
In 1799 the great French engineer Marc Brunel moved to England. He was as grandiose a developer as he was an engineer. His various money-making schemes collapsed in 1821, and he was sent off to debtors’ prison. But the Duke of Wellington got him out. England needed his services.
House of Lords Debate, 25 July 1834
Lord Wharncliffe moved the second reading of the Great Western Railway Bill.
The Earl of Cadogan rose to oppose the Motion. He observed, that the road front Windsor to London was the first which had been projected through this part of the country, and this road, which on that account deserved their Lordships’ favour, would be materially affected, and its projectors injured by this Bill. There were roads extending along different parts of this line, which only required to be connected together in order to render them perfect. That object might be effected at less expense, and with greater advantage, than the road which was called by the high-sounding appellation of the great Western Railway. This project had been so altered in the Committee in the Commons, that it was no longer capable of performing the promise at first held out, but would, at least at the London end, leave the parties at a distance of three or four miles from London, to bring their goods hither how they could. The road was now to terminate at Brompton, which would have the effect he had stated. This was his first objection. His next objection was, that the line now contemplated was not a complete line, as the road came from Bristol to Bath, but left goods between Bath and Reading to be brought by the Kennet and Avon Canal Company, and from Reading to Brompton by the Rail-road. The third objection he had was, that the number of the assents was not so great, nor was their property so considerable, as that of the dissents; and the fourth objection was, that their Lordships had already given their assent to the London and Southampton Railway Bill, which would be rendered almost good for nothing, for at least a considerable part of the distance, if this Bill should be carried. Under these circumstances he should move, “That the Bill be read a second time this day six Months.”
By Marc Isambard Brunel
The Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1837
April 11, 1837
Mr. Brunel gave an account of the Thames Tunnel. Having described the nature and difficulties of the undertaking, and the previous attempts which had been made by others to effect a similar work, he explained, by reference to sections, the nature of the strata below the river. He had adopted the rectangular form of the present excavation, because the work would set better than if it had been of any other form, and it also had a better sustaining surface. The necessity of supporting the ground, and of having a sufficient shelter, had led to the adoption of the shield, respecting which so much had been said. The construction of this would be most easily understood, by conceiving twelve books set side by side on their ends. These would represent the parallel frames which, standing side by side, but not in immediate contact, filled up the excavation. Each frame was divided into three boxes or cells, placed one above the other, the adjustment of the floors of which, and other details, were minutely described by Mr. Brunel.
Each frame was furnished with two large slings, by which it might derive support from, or assist in supporting, its neighbours; it had also two legs, and was advanced, as it were, by short steps, having for this purpose an articulation which might be compared to that of the human body. The frame rested on one leg, and then one side was hitched a little forward; then resting on the other leg, the other side was hitched a little, and so on. Hence the shield might be called an ambulating coffer-dam, travelling horizontally.
The brick-work was built in complete rings, and the advantages of this system of building had been fully proved, by the fact of two dreadful irruptions of the river having produced no disruption. Such was the violence of the irruption, that the brick-work had in one part been suddenly reduced in thickness by one-half, and in one place there was a hole, as if pierced by a cannon-ball. At a few feet beneath the tunnel was a bed of quicksand 50 feet deep, and above it were strata of most doubtful consistency, some of which fell to pieces immediately they were disturbed. Still, however, the progress was certain, and only required patience, to allow the ground above to acquire sufficient density. He found gravel, with a mixture of chalk or clay, extremely impervious to water; in some cases he contrived to let out the water from the sand above, and thus obtained ground of sufficient density. The progress had been considerably retarded by land springs, which produced cutaneous eruptions, and destroyed the finger-nails of the workmen.
April 18, 1837
Mr. Brunel continued his description of the works of the Tunnel. He explained how the ground above had suddenly sunk down, owing to the run of at lower stratum of sand. This running sand, which was a great annoyance, consisted of five parts of water to one of sand. Bags of clay and gravel were not so effective, where there were many stones, as the interstices did not become properly filled up; in such cases the coarsest river sand was a better material; the water ran through it at first, but it soon stopped ; a mixture of gravel and clay was nearly impervious to water, but not so impervious as gravel and pounded chalk.
The Ventilation of the Tunnel was provided for by a pipe 15 inches square, passing out under the fire-place of the steam-engine boiler.
Mr. Gibbs stated, that he had found bags filled with clay and tow-waste, exceedingly impervious to water. Being called upon to build a sluice, in a place where piling was impossible, in consequence of the stony nature of the ground, he had formed a coffer- dam, by laying down bags full of clay and tow-waste, in tiers, on the top of each other, up to the surface of the water.
By Richard Beamish, M. Inst. C.E.
The Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1837
April 4, 1837
The paper states that several attempts had been made in former years to effect a communication betwixt the opposite shores of the Thames by means of a tunnel, all of which, however, failed. In 1798, Dodd proposed a tunnel at Gravesend; in 1804, Chapman projected one at Rotherhithe; and in 1807, Vazie commenced the construction of a shaft, II feet diameter, at a distance of 315 feet from the river. With Vazie was associated Trevethick, a man of great practical knowledge as a miner, and by indefatigable labor, a drift-way 5 feet in height, 2 feet 6 inches in breadth at the top, and 3 feet at the bottom, was carried 1046 feet under the river. In the spring of 1808, having first ascended from under a rocky stratum, though with a depth of at least 25 feet betwixt them and the bed of the river, the Thames broke in upon them, and not a single brick having been laid, the work was irretrievably lost.
In 1823 the subject of a tunnel was again agitated, and a company was formed, to carry into execution the plans of Mr. Brunel. The first proceeding was to sink a shaft. Twenty-four piles, with a shoulder on each, were first driven all round the circle intended for the shaft. One side of a wooden platform, or curb, was then laid on this shoulder, whilst the other side rested on an iron curb, having an edge below to which it was attached. Through this curb ascended forty-eight wrought-iron bolts, 2 inches diameter, to the height of 40 feet, the height to which it was proposed to raise the shaft. The regular building of the tower on the curb, with bricks laid in cement, was proceeded with, and yet farther bound together by twenty-six circular hoops of timber, half an inch thick, as the brick-work was brought up. At the top of the tower was placed another curb, and the long iron bolts passing through it, having their ends formed into screws, the whole was screwed solidly into one mass, and completed in three weeks. In a week after it was finished sixteen of the piles having been driven, two by two, opposite each other, the whole structure was sunk half an inch, carrying down with it the remaining eight piles, on which it was brought to a rest uniformly and horizontally, thus permitting the sixteen piles to be abstracted by opening the ground at the back. The whole weight supported by these eight piles was about 910 tons (the weight of the shaft). Having been left for three weeks to dry, and gravel having been heaped under the curb, the remaining eight piles were removed, two by two, till the mass rested on a bed of gravel. The machinery, viz., the thirty-horse high pressure steam engine, with gear for raising the excavated soil was now fixed on the top. The miners were placed inside, and by excavating from around the bottom, the whole descended by its own gravity.
Mr. Beamish then describes the peculiar difficulties which were experienced, previous to the first irruption.
The chasm in the bed of the river, formed by the irruption of 1827, was stopped by bags filled with clay, with hazel rods passed through them, the interstices thus formed being filled with gravel. The irruption of 1828 was met by similar means; but the funds of the company not being then sufficient for proceeding with the work, the shield was blocked up with bricks and cement, and a wall 4 feet in thickness was built within the Tunnel.
The work was then abandoned, and remained untouched for seven years. In 1835 a Treasury loan was granted, subject to the condition, that the most dangerous part of the Tunnel should be executed first. On resuming the works, the first object was to provide a drain for the water from the shield, for which purpose two reservoirs were formed under the middle pier, from which drifts were formed to the bottom of the great excavation and shield. The water was abstracted from the shield at the lowest point, and the pipes of two pumps, worked by the steam engine, being brought into the reservoir, all the difficulty of the drainage was overcome.
The removal of the old and the introduction of the new shield, was a work of no ordinary difficulty. The bricks and cement had, by the strong oxide of iron which the water contained, been converted into a mass harder than most rocks ; and not less than 1646 feet of surface, 342 feet of which constituted the ceiling, had to be supported, on the removal of the brick-work, previous to the introduction of the new shield. The means, however, adopted by Mr. Brunel, and which are described in the paper, were perfectly successful.
The Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1880
William Froude, LL.D., F.R.S., the fourth son of the Ven. R. H. Froude, Archdeacon of Totnes, was born at Dartington Parsonage, on the 28th of November, 1810.
He was educated at Westminster School, and went thence to Oriel College, Oxford, being for some time a pupil of his elder brother, R. Hurrell Froude, an advantage to which he often referred. He took a first class in Mathematical Honours in 1832.
In the beginning of the year 1833, he became a pupil of Henry Robinson Palmer, V.P. Inst. C.E., then Resident Engineer of the London Docks. Mr. Froude was afterwards employed under Mr. Palmer on some of the early surveys of the South Eastern Railway and on other undertakings.
In 1837, Mr. Froude joined the engineering staff of Mr. Brunel, V.P. Inst. C.E., upon the Bristol and Exeter railway, where he had charge of the construction of the line between the Whitehall Tunnel and Exeter, and remained until it was opened in May, 1844.