Join us on 9 April, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s birthday, for a special lecture by Tim Bryan.
More than 20 years after coming second in a poll as the country’s ‘Greatest Briton’ the figure of Isambard Kingdom Brunel remains a potent symbol of Victorian engineering progress and an iconic figure in the public imagination.
Why does Brunel remain such a popular figure, especially in comparison to peers like George and Robert Stephenson? It was not always the case, and Isambard was seldom viewed by contemporaries with uncritical admiration or enthusiasm, especially those who had lost money on his more reckless schemes.
This presentation tracks the development of what we’d now call the Brunel brand, and the image developed and promoted by his family after his death in 1859, cemented by LTC Rolt’s pioneering biography of the engineer published in 1957 and how Brunel has been portrayed in more recent times.
What is Brunel’s legacy and what remains of his work?
Would he still make the top 20 of a Greatest Britons poll?
What can we learn from his life and career, and how is he still relevant in the 21st century?
About Tim Bryan
Born in Bristol, Tim has spent his career working with industrial maritime and transport collections, leading the curatorial team during the development of the STEAM Museum in Swindon, before moving to the British Motor Museum as Head of Collections in 2004. He was Director of the Brunel Institute at the SS Great Britain Trust from 2019 to 2025 and is now Brunel curator and project manager for the Trust’s new Dockyard Museum development, due to open in July 2026.
Tim has presented at many conferences and seminars in the UK, Italy, Germany and the USA on a variety of railway, museum and heritage subjects; he has written more than twenty books on railway history including two about Brunel; ‘Iron Stone & Steam: Brunel’s Railway Kingdom’ his most recent title was published in November 2023.
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