1769-1849
Engineer

Underwater Tunneling. One of the major engineering achievements of the nineteenth century was the development of the technology to construct tunnels under rivers. People had been building land tunnels since ancient times, but efforts to tunnel through ground under water failed because the soft, water-bearing strata tended to collapse. Marc Brunei solved the problem by inventing the tunneling shield (patented in 1818) and went on to build the first underwater tunnel in the world under the River Thames in London (1825-1843).

Early Life. The son of a prosperous farmer, Marc Isambard Brunei was born in Hacqueville, a small village in northern France, and demonstrated his talent for mathematics, mechanics, and drawing at an early age. By the time he was eleven, he had expressed his desire to become an engineer, but his father wanted his son to become a priest and enrolled the...