Victorian engineer who designed the Great Western Railway, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and the SS Great Britain — voted the second greatest Briton in a 2002 BBC poll.
Victorian engineering ambition: Brunel's achievement was repeatedly building things at scales and technical specifications that had never been attempted — the GWR's 7ft gauge (superior for stability, eventually abandoned for compatibility), the Clifton Suspension Bridge (longest span in the world at completion), the SS Great Britain (first ocean-going propeller-driven ship with an iron hull). Each project was technically unprecedented. The breadth across railways, bridges, and ships is unique in engineering history — most great Victorian engineers specialized.
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