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On my bookshelf | Isambard Kingdom Brunel, by LTC Rolt
A landmark biography of the great engineer that continues to inspire and influence
This biography by LTC Rolt of the iconic 19th-century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the visionary innovator, architect and entrepreneur, was published in 1957, and was the first in more than 80 years.
Rolt tells a dramatic tale, his elegant prose full of adventure and incident as Brunel blazed a trail across the British landscape in a period of huge social, economic and political change.
With access to private family archives, he was also able to write a biography that was more than just a dry account of engineering achievements.
Instead, he provided insights into Brunel’s complex and contradictory character as well as his work on the Clifton Suspension Bridge, railways and steamships, including the pioneering SS Great Britain.
I came across the book in my first job as a curator in Swindon, a railway town that owes much to Brunel.
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It is still of great relevance in my current role, but having been written over 60 years ago, it feels today as if Rolt played down Brunel’s less successful projects that cost shareholders thousands of pounds, and also the darker side of his personality, such as his treatment of staff.
New and more balanced biographies have appeared since Rolt’s death, but his book remains a landmark text for anyone interested in civil engineering and transport history in the Victorian era.
Tim Bryan is the director of the Brunel Institute at Brunel’s SS Great Britain in Bristol and author of Iron, Stone & Steam: Brunel’s Railway Kingdom, published in 2023