BRIEF HISTORY DURING THE SNOW ERA (1813-58)

Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849) is famous for constructing the first tunnel ever built under a navigable river (see Thames Tunnel).  Born in France on April 25,1769, Brunel was educated as a civil engineer.  He left France during its revolution and settled in the United States as chief Engineer for New York City.  At age 30 he decided to return to Europe and moved in 1799 to England.  For several years he assisted the British Navy in Portsmouth, the city where his engineer son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was born in 1806.  Two years later in 1808 the family moved to Lindsey Row (now 98 Cheyne Walk) by the River Thames just West of Battersea Bridge.  They remained there until 1825.  

Besides being an engineer, Brunel was an inventor, with an original mind and much energy. He invented an early typewriter, a cotton winding machine, a knitting machine and a boot-making machine. He started various enterprises, but had problems with finance and management, and eventually went bankrupt.  His problems peaked in 1821 when he was imprisoned for indebtedness for several months.  Then things began to turn around.  In 1818 he had patented the tunneling shield, a device that enables miners to build tunnels in unstable soil.  He used this device after leaving jail to build the Thames Tunnel from 1825 to 1843.

For his incredible engineering feat, Brunel was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1841.  Eight years later he died on December 12, 1849, leaving his prominent son to continue the family legacy.    

Brunel's home on Lindsey Row is not marked on the 1859 map but lies on the River Thames between Millman Row and Beaufort Street, just to the West of the Battersea Bridge.  On the earlier 1843 map, Lindsey Row is incorrectly identified as Linden Row.  In the later 1865 map, Lindsey Row and the earlier location of Brunel's house is clearly marked.  

Sources: 

Barker F, Jackson P. London -- 2000 Years of a City and Its People, 1974.

Halliday S. The Great Stink of London -- Sir Joseph Bazalgette and the Cleansing of Victorian Metropolis, 1999. 

Rennison, N. The Blue Plaque Guide, 1999.

Richardson J. The Annals of London -- A Year-by-Year Record of a Thousand Years of History, 2000.

Weinreb B, Hibbert C (eds). The London Encyclopaedia, 1993.