Sir Marc Isambard Brunel was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Henry Maudslay was an English machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology. His inventions were an important foundation for the Industrial Revolution.
A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, man-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the project itself from falling materials or a cave-in. A tunnelling shield can be used as a temporary support structure. It is usually in place for the short-term from when the tunnel section is excavated until it can be lined with a permanent support structure. The permanent structure may be made up of, depending on the period, bricks, concrete, cast iron, or steel. Although modern shields are commonly cylindrical, the first "shield", designed by Marc Isambard Brunel, was actually a large, rectangular, scaffold-like iron structure with three levels and twelve sections per level, with a solid load-bearing top surface. The structure protected the men from cave-ins as they laboured within it, digging the tunnel out in front of the shield.
The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 ft (11 m) wide by 20 ft (6.1 m) high and is 1,300 ft (400 m) long, running at a depth of 75 ft (23 m) below the river surface measured at high tide. It is the first tunnel known to have been constructed successfully underneath a navigable river. It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel, and his son, Isambard, using the tunnelling shield newly invented by the elder Brunel and Thomas Cochrane.
The Tower Subway is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in central London, between Tower Hill on the north bank of the river and Vine Lane on the south. In 1869 a 1,340-foot-long (410 m) circular tunnel was dug through the London clay using a cast iron circular shield independently invented and built by James Henry Greathead, similar to an idea that had been not received a patent in 1864, nor built by Peter W. Barlow.
Peter William Barlow was an English civil engineer, particularly associated with railways, bridges, the design of tunnels and the development of tunnelling techniques. In 1864 he patented a design for a cylindrical tunnelling shield, and obtained a provisional patent in 1868 for an improved design.
The year 1870 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
William Henry Barlow was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was involved in many engineering enterprises. He was engineer for the Midland Railway on its London extension and designed the company's London terminus at St Pancras.
A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. Tunnels are excavated through hard rock, wet or dry soil, or sand, each of which requires specialized technology.
Alfred Ely Beach was an American inventor, entrepreneur, publisher, and patent lawyer, born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is most known for his design of New York City's earliest subway predecessor, the Beach Pneumatic Transit, which became the first subway in America. He was an early owner and cofounder of Scientific American and Munn & Co., the country's leading patent agency, and helped secure patents for Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and other innovators. A member of the Union League of New York, he also invented a typewriter for the blind and a system for heating water with solar power.
A jackhammer is a pneumatic or electro-mechanical tool that combines a hammer directly with a chisel. It was invented by William McReavy, who then sold the patent to Charles Brady King. Hand-held jackhammers are generally powered by compressed air, but some are also powered by electric motors. Larger jackhammers, such as rig-mounted hammers used on construction machinery, are usually hydraulically powered. These tools are typically used to break up rock, pavement, and concrete.
The City and South London Railway (C&SLR) was the first successful deep-level underground "tube" railway in the world, and the first major railway to use electric traction. The railway was originally intended for cable-hauled trains, but owing to the bankruptcy of the cable contractor during construction, a system of electric traction using electric locomotives—an experimental technology at the time—was chosen instead.
Thomas Russell Crampton, MICE, MIMechE was an English engineer born at Broadstairs, Kent, and trained on Brunel's Great Western Railway.
Mott, Hay and Anderson (MHA) was a successful 20th century firm of consulting civil engineers based in the United Kingdom. The company traded until 1989, when it merged with Sir M MacDonald & Partners to form Mott MacDonald.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", "one of the 19th-century engineering giants", and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions". Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway (GWR), a series of steamships including the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering.
Henry Francis Greathead (1757–1818) was a pioneering rescue lifeboat builder from South Shields. Although Lionel Lukin had patented a lifeboat in 1785, Greathead successfully petitioned parliament in 1802 with the claim that he had invented a lifeboat in 1790, and he was awarded £1,200 for his trouble. Although his claims have been contested, he did build 31 boats, which saved very many lives, and succeeded in making the concept of a shore-based rescue lifeboat widely accepted.
A steam hammer, also called a drop hammer, is an industrial power hammer driven by steam that is used for tasks such as shaping forgings and driving piles. Typically the hammer is attached to a piston that slides within a fixed cylinder, but in some designs the hammer is attached to a cylinder that slides along a fixed piston.
The statue of James Henry Greathead, designed by James Butler, is installed outside the Royal Exchange, where it conceals a ventilation shaft. It was erected in 1994 on a traffic island in the middle of Cornhill, London, with traffic passing to either side, similar to the statue of Prince Albert at Holborn Circus. The London Troops War Memorial is nearby.
The Spotswood sewer tunnel is a sanitary sewer tunnel in Melbourne, Victoria. It was constructed in 1895 to take sewerage under the Yarra River to the Spotswood Pumping Station, where it was pumped to the Werribee Sewage Farm.
Sir Ernest William Moir was a British civil engineer and the first Moir baronet. He is credited with inventing the first medical airlock while working on the Hudson River Tunnel in New York in 1889.
