Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born on 9th April 1806 in Portsmouth, England to Sir Marc Brunel, a French civil engineer and Sophia Kingdom, the youngest of 16 children of English parents. Isambard’s parents had quite a love story; Sophia was sent to France to improve her French language skills where she met Marc, but after a while he had to flee the French Revolution, leaving for the US, whilst Sophia stayed in France. She was later arrested as a spy and while waiting to be executed, she was saved at the last minute by the fall of a leading revolutionary allowing for her release, so she then returned to London. Marc was in the US for 6 years sailing for the English Royal Navy, but as soon as he returned to England, the first thing he did was look for Sophia. He found her and they married her on 1st November 1799. 7 years later, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born.

Brunel’s upbringing was very much focused on his education, which mostly came from his father. His father, also a talented engineer, taught him drawing and engineering techniques from as young as four. At the age of eight, he was sent to a boarding school, during which time his father was mounting up significant debts. When Brunel was 14 his father wanted him to be educated in France, so sent him to a university in Paris. But as the years went on the financial situation of his father was going from bad to worse.

A year later, Brunel’s father was sent to prison for debts of over £5,000. After 3 months without any prospect for release, his son, the young Isambard, put the word out that he was considering moving to Russia. Even as just a young teenager, Isambard’s abilities were already known throughout his home country and as far up as the UK government, so he used the value of his skills as a bargaining chip with the government by essentially giving them an ultimatum between losing him to the Russian Tsar or letting his dad go.

In August 1821, when Brunel was just 15 years old, the government caved and cleared his father’s debts by issuing him £5,000 on the promise that Brunel remained in Britain. This decision could well be a contender for one of the best investments of all time. Had the government not relented to Isambard, the world would most likely look very different today. Isambard contributed a great deal to the industrial revolution, and it was all riding on the principle that his father’s debt be wiped. It makes us wonder how many other bright minds might have slipped through the cracks, held back by crippling debt, that could of changed the world.

Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel helped create the Thames Tunnel with his father, who was chief engineer on the project, it took several years, during which time the young Brunel was seriously injured, spending 6 months recovering from his injuries, he recovered and it was eventually finished. They used abandoned parts from the site for their own experiments and worked together on other projects too. Clearly the bond between the two was strong and they inspired each other, we can only imagine how much more difficult that would have been if their only contact were posted letters across the North and Baltic Seas.

Sir Isambard later went on to become chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, overseeing every detail, and not for the first time, had to argue for his idea to be used instead of the current standards. The train track then was narrower than it is today, Brunel wanted it to be increased, to allow for larger, faster and more stable carriages to be used, and fortunately he eventually won the decision makers over and got his way. A few years later he was asked to build a steam-powered paddle ship to travel from Britain to New York, which he did to great success. He then turned his focus from paddle-power to propellor power and again he went against the current standards and did tests to prove his way was right, which led to Brunel creating the first ever modern ship in 1943 – it had an iron hull and engine-driven propellor – called the Great Britain.

The recent history of the UK, and possibly even the world, owes great debt to the mind of Sir Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his fathers, and whether for better or worse, the world would look very different today had his father’s £5,000 debt been upheld.