Isambard Kingdom Brunel Trivia Quiz

Answer: French and English

Marc Brunel was a Frenchman, born into a prosperous farming family in Normandy. During a stay with relatives in Rouen, he met his future wife Sophie, an English girl who was working there as a governess. He was a Royalist sympathiser, and during the French Revolution was forced to leave France, going first to America and then England, where he re-established contact with Sophie and married her in 1799.

Answer: 1806

Brunel was born on 9th April 1806 in Portsmouth, where his father was working as an engineer making rigging blocks for sailing ships.

Answer: It was his mother's maiden name.

Although Marc Brunel was a royalist and was no doubt grateful to the Kingdom of Great Britain for providing a home for him, Sophia's surname was in fact Kingdom. If a midwife was present at Isambard's birth, her name is not recorded!

Answer: The Thames Tunnel.

Marc Brunel had made a career in mechanical and civil engineering, and in 1824 was appointed Chief Engineer to a project to build a tunnel under the Thames between Rotherhithe and Wapping. Isambard was employed as his assistant in the early days of the project, which was beset by technical and financial problems. The tunnel was eventually opened in 1843. Later it was used as a railway tunnel, becoming a key part of the London Underground (East London Line), and it was later transferred to the London Overground.
Tower Bridge was designed by Horace Jones in 1884, twenty-five years after Isambard's death.
The Chelsea and Victoria Embankments were built from the 1840s to the 1860s and did not involve Brunel.
The 'Great Eastern' was built between 1854 and 1859 and was Brunel's last major project. The difficulties and anxieties associated with her construction and launching may have contribute to Brunel's early death at the age of 53.

Answer: Canals

Brunel designed and built railways, bridges, ships and docks, but any involvement that he had with canals was incidental.

Answer: 33 years

Brunel won a competition for a design for the proposed Clifton Bridge in 1831, and construction commenced in that year, but was interrupted by civil unrest and shortage of funds and ceased in 1843 with the bridge unfinished. It remained in this state until after Brunel's death in 1859, when his civil engineering colleagues decided to complete the structure as a tribute to his memory.

It was completed in 1864.

Answer: She was the first iron ship with screw propulsion.

The first of these ships to be launched was the 'Great Western' in 1837. She was built of wood and was propelled by paddles. The 'Great Britain' (1843) was built of iron and was equipped with a screw. The 'Great Eastern' (1859) was also made of iron and had both paddles and a screw. All three ships had sails, which provided auxiliary power and also had a steadying effect in a seaway.
The first steamship to cross the Atlantic was the American 'Savannah' in 1819.

Answer: Great Western Railway.

The Great Western Railway (GWR) was founded in 1833 and enabled by Act of Parliament in 1835 with Brunel as its chief engineer. Under his direction the line was built westwards from the company's headquarters in Paddington to Bristol and beyond. With a gauge of 7 feet and a quarter of an inch the railway was conceived on a grandiose scale.
British Rail was formed by nationalisation of the existing railway companies in 1947, ninety years after Brunel's death!
The London and Western Railway and the London, Midland and Welsh Railway are fictitious.

Answer: America

In 1835 Brunel envisaged a passenger being able to purchase a ticket from London to New York, travelling on the Great Western Railway to Bristol and onwards by steamship. The Great Western Steamship Company was formed in 1836 for this purpose and was responsible for building Brunel's first two ships, 'Great Western' and 'Great Britain'. The venture failed because of the company's loss of the valuable transatlantic mail contract to Cunard and delays and unforeseen expense in building the 'Great Britain'.
Brunel was never interested in establishing routes to Scotland, France or Australia.

Answer: A railway which uses air pressure to provide motive power.

An atmospheric railway is powered by a piston rigidly suspended from the carriage running in an air-tight tube through a sealable slot. Air is pumped out of the tube in front of the piston and admitted behind it so that atmospheric pressure pushes the piston forwards into the partial vacuum. Brunel adopted this system on the GWR between Exeter and Plymouth in 1847. It was ultimately a failure, largely because of the difficulty in keeping the slot (which allowed connection of the piston to the train) air-tight. It was sealed by leather flaps lubricated with tallow but these dried out in the vacuum and were prey to tallow-hungry rats. The attempt lasted for less than a year.
The other options are 'trivial'!