Marc Isambard Brunel was born in Hacqueville, Normandy, France. He served as an officer in the French navy from 1786 to 1792. In 1793, he left revolutionary France for the United States because of his royalist sympathies. He practiced as a civil engineer and architect and soon became New York City's chief engineer. In that post, he constructed many buildings, an arsenal, and a cannon foundry, and advised the city on ways to improve the defenses of the channel between Staten and Long Islands.

While in New York, Brunel designed a method for manufacturing ship's blocks, or pulleys, mechanically rather than by hand. Since a single large warship of that time could use fourteen hundred blocks, Brunel sailed to England in 1799 to present his ideas to the British navy. In London, Brunel and Henry Maudslay constructed models of the machines. The proposal was accepted, and Maudslay constructed the block-making machinery at...