The guest speaker at Kyrle Probus Club’s recent meeting was Nigel Thompson, who gave an enthusiastic presentation on two French engineers, Marc Brunel and Gustave Eiffel, who in his opinion are both absolute geniuses.

Nigel, who is social secretary at Longdon and District Probus Club in Gloucestershire, told the audience that he felt Marc Brunel had been unfairly overshadowed by his son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Marc Brunel, he believed, was an even greater genius than his son, because he had been a true pioneer of engineering systems.

Brunel was born in 1769 and at the age of 16 he joined the Navy. During his service abroad, the French Revolution began. Brunel returned to Rouen, where he met a young Englishwoman, Sophie Kingdom, who was to become his bride.

He had to leave her behind, when as a Royalist supporter, he had to flee France and took a ship to New York. While there, he learned of the difficulties the Royal Navy was having in obtaining the 100,000 pulley blocks it needed each year for its ships.

Brunel designed a machine that would automate the production of the pulley blocks and travelled to England to present his invention to the Admiralty. His machines were installed in Portsmouth docks.

He became a prolific inventor, but financial mismanagement by his partners drove his enterprise into bankruptcy and he ended up in the debtors prison.

The Duke of Wellington came to his aid and he was able to set up a company with his son, Isambard.

Brunel also practised as a civil engineer and his interest in tunnelling led him to produce the Brunel Shield, a protective device in which one digger and one bricklayer could work safely while tunnelling under water.

In 1825, work began on a Brunel-designed tunnel under the River Thames. It was eventually completed in 1842 after great physical and financial difficulties. In 1865, the London Railway Company bought the tunnel and ran steam trains in it.

“It was one of the greatest engineering achievements ever,” declared Nigel.

Brunel had been knighted by Queen Victoria in 1841 and he died in 1849 at the age of 80.

The other French engineer, Gustave Eiffel, was born in Dijon in 1832 and after graduating from college in Paris, he began to specialise in metal construction, especially bridges, and became known as the ’master of iron.’

He bridged the Douro river at Oporto in Portugal with an arch of 160 metres span, and then an even greater arch of 162 metres span for the Garabit railway viaduct in southern France, which was for many years the highest bridge in the world.

He also designed the framework for the Statue of Liberty in New York, and before then created his landmark construction, the Eiffel Tower.

Constructed of puddled iron and 984ft high, it sealed Eiffel’s reputation as the ’master of iron.’ Eiffel was later to say: “That damned tower is more famous than I am.”

He also was involved in the design of a lock for the Panama Canal and went on to do important work in aerodynamics, having built the first aerodynamics laboratory.

The ‘master of iron’ was also “an innovator, like Brunel,” declared Nigel. “They were two brilliant engineers who should be better known than they are,” he concluded.