Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Victorian engineer responsible for bridges, tunnels and railways still in use today more than 150 years after they were built. Brunel represented the cutting edge of technological innovation in Victorian Britain, and his life gives us a window onto the social changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution. Yet his work was not always successful, and his innovative approach to engineering projects was often greeted with suspicion from investors.
Guests:
Julia Elton, former President of the Newcomen Society for the History of Engineering and Technology
Ben Marsden, Senior Lecturer in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen
Crosbie Smith, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Kent
Producer: Luke Mulhall.