Lifelines
3 primary works • 11 total works
Book 1
Book 3
Book 4
The famous son of a famous father, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was acknowledged in his own lifetime as the greatest engineer in an era of engineering titans. He helped drive the first tunnel under a navigable river, built the first all iron ship, bridged the Tamar and Avon, constructed the first railway to run express services and launched the world's first true luxury liner a vessel five times bigger than any previously attempted. Success was often bought at a high price in money and men's lives. Brunel himself was nearly drowned in his father's Thames Tunnel. Over a hundred labourers were killed excavating Box Tunnel on the Great Western Railway. The Great Eastern bankrupted its backers. Brunel's experimental 'gaz engine' and atmospheric railway both proved costly failures. He died knowing only that the maiden voyage of the Great Eastern had ended in disaster and that the Clifton suspension bridge, his first major triumph, was still uncompleted. In 2002 Brunel was voted second in a BBC poll of the ten greatest Britons of all time. This is his story.
William Morris' many-sided career placed him at the centre of an age and culture he both condemned and shaped. Hailed now-a-days as a pioneer of modern design, he was best known to his contemporaries as a poet. A man of immense energy, charm and imagination, Morris learned to turn private grief to public purpose. Having failed as an architect and a painter, he succeeded as a weaver, dyer, calligrapher, printer, businessman, journalist and novelist.
Josiah Wedgwood not only transformed the manufacture of pottery and the methods of its distribution but also revolutionised industry generally. He originated mass-production to increase efficiency and reduce waste, thus providing a product that more people could afford, and pioneered techniques of salesmanship, attracting the custom of royalty and maintaining the same standard in all his ware. He treated his employees with benevolence, introducing unprecedented methods. Despite having a leg amputated at the prime of life, Wedgwood nonetheless continued to devote his attention to his diverse interests and to the industry of which he was the founding father.