BRUNEL, SIR Marc Isambard, English engineer: b. Hacqueville, near Rouen, 25 April 1769; d. 12 Dec. 1849. He was the son of a Normandy farmer, and was educated at the seminary of Saint Nicaise, Rouen. From early boyhood he displayed a decided turn for scien tific and mechanical pursuits, amusing himself with the construction of ships, musical instru ments and machines of different sorts. At the age of 15 he went to Rouen, where he took a course of lessons in drawing, perspective and hydrography. In 1786 he entered the French naval service and made several voyages to the West Indies, in which he distinguished himself both by his inventive mechanical genius and the attention and ability with which he discharged the duties of a seaman. In 1793 he returned to France, and, having paid a visit to Paris, and i taken part in the proceedings at one• of the political clubs, he narrowly escaped proscription by venturing to oppose the ferocious doctrines then current, and was obliged to make his escape to America. Shortly after his arrival there he joined a party of Frenchmen in an expedition to explore the regions around Lake Ontario, and in 1794 he was appointed one of the surveyors of the canal now connecting Lake Champlain and the river Hudson. He was afterward employed, both as engineer and architect, on various undertakings in the city of New York, including the erection of forts for its defense and the establishment of an arse nal and foundry. He submitted a highly ornamental design for the national capitol at Washington, which was not accepted; but he was engaged in building the Bowery Theatre, New York, which was destroyed by fire in 1821. In 1799 he went to England and settled at Plymouth, where he married Miss Sophia King dom, whom he had formerly known at Rouen.
His first work in this country was the con struction of a copying-machine; and he soon established his reputation as a mechanician by the invention of a machine for making the block-pulleys for the rigging of ships, which effected an immense saving in labor and ex pense and is still in full operation in English naval dockyards. In 1820, he also made plans for bridges at Rouen and Saint Petersburg. Of Brunel's subsequent achievements may be mentioned more especially the erection of the steam saw-mill in Chatham dockyard; a ma chine for making seamless shoes for the army; machines for making nails and wooden boxes, for ruling paper and twisting cotton into hanks; and lastly, a machine for producing locomotion by means of carbonic acid gas, which, however, though partially successful, was ultimately abandoned.. But the great work by which his name will be transmitted to posterity was the Thames Tunnel, which, though almost a com plete failure as a commercial speculation, was nevertheless a wondrous monument of engi neering skill and enterprise. It was commenced in March 1825, and opened to the public in 1843, after a multitude of disasters and obstacles had been endured and surmounted. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1814, and vice-president from 1832-33. He received the order of the Legion of Honor in 1829, and in 1841 the honor of knighthood was conferred on him. Consult Beamish, Richard, 'Memoirs of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel) (1862).