Henry Marc Brunel

Henry Marc Brunel (27 June 1842 – 7 October 1903) was the second son of the celebrated English engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and followed his father's footsteps in becoming a civil engineer.

Brunel attended King's College London from 1859–1861, and afterward attained experience in civil engineering through serving out various apprenticeships. He developed an interest in acting as a hobby, becoming a member of the Scientific and Amateur Dramatic Societies, and also contributed to his brother's biography of their father (The Life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer, 1870).^[1]

Henry is noted for a partnership from 1878 with Sir John Wolfe-Barry, with whom he designed the Blackfriars Railway Bridge over the River Thames in central London. Their other works included the docks at Barry in south Wales and the Creagan Bridge, a railway bridge over the narrows of Loch Creran in Scotland (jointly credited to Wolfe-Barry, Brunel and E.M. Crutwell). Sir Alexander Gibb was a pupil of Brunel and Wolfe-Barry in 1895.

He also designed the SS Chauncy Maples, which was built in Glasgow in 1899 and transported overland to Lake Nyasa in Africa, where it served for more than one hundred years as a mission and hospital clinic.

Brunel is buried with his father, grandfather, and other family members at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

References