This is a part-lithograph, part manuscript document, sent by the Thames Tunnel Company (TTC) to prospective investors to sound out possible private funding. One of an unknown number of copies sent over at least a two month period in mid-1828, this letter is evidence of the TTC’s ever-more desperate attempts to raise private capital during a period of financial problems occasioned by severe flooding which threatened to put an end to the project altogether.[1]
In May 1828, Parliament authorised a £200,000 increase in the TTC’s capital. This could be raised by issuing further shares; by mortage; annuities; debentures; or by applying for a government loan.[2] The decision was taken to issue debentures, probably due to the collapse of the TTC’s share price amidst both a wider banking crisis in 1825 and then public knowledge of flooding in 1827.[3]
To find new investors, the TTC moved beyond the approach taken at the start of the project in 1823-4, which relied predominantly on word-of-mouth and meetings set up with key friends and colleagues of Marc Brunel and a handful of others.[4] As this letter suggests, lists of potential investors were drawn up and approaches made, accompanied by supporting documents, in an attempt to convince them of the solidity of the works and of the chances of a return on investments. In this respect, this letter forms part of a wider strategy to convince and assure investors which also included the Thames Tunnel Designs (LDBRU:2017.1-27) and cardboard models of the Tunnel and Shield (LDBRU:2017.31).
Following the failure of a first round of funding aimed chiefly at investors in London, the TTC targeted a wider set of investors in the provinces. Lists of investors and requests for further subscribers were thus printed in the provincial press, with money now able to be subscribed at provincial bankers.[5] Meanwhile, one provincial investor was asked whether it was worth travelling afield in person to solicit financial assistance.[6]
This wider search for investors included the Irish peer John Maxwell-Barry (1767-1838), recipient of this letter. Maxwell-Barry, from 1832 5th Baron Farnham, was an Irish M.P., soldier, and peer.[7] Given his role as colonel of the Cavan Militia, he was most often known as Colonel Barry.[8] It is not currently known whether Maxwell-Barry offered money to the project. It is assumed, however, that — since the TTC eventually applied for a government loan — the majority of approaches made to individual investors were unsuccessful.
Using paper made in early 1828 at Eynsford Paper Mill, near Dartford, this letter was drafted in manuscript by an unidentified copyist in late May or early June 1828.[9] Marc Brunel employed several copyists drawn from among the workmen in the Tunnel; it is possible this was drafted by one of those workers.[10] The original manuscript was then lithographed (possibly by John Shuttleworth who lithographed other contemporaneous documents for the TTC) to produce multiple copies for circulation.
The manuscript portions of this printed copy of the letter were added in August 1828 into spaces left by the first copyist for the date, salutation, forms of address, signature, and recipient’s name. These blanks were filled by Charles Butler, clerk to the TTC between 1824-36.[11] They are clearly visible in a brown ink which contrasts with the black lithograph text.
The letter was finally signed by James Bandinel, honorary secretary to the TTC. James Bandinel (1783-1849) was a civil servant at the Foreign Office, now best known for his role as superintendent of the slave trade, charged with managing its abolition in the British Empire.[12] By 1828, Bandinel had known Marc Brunel in some capacity for many years; he was also godfather to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s son.[13] Bandinel held just one share in the Thames Tunnel Company; he was, however, present at the 10 November 1827 banquet in the Tunnel, indicating his key role in the Company.[14]
The letter is addressed from 29 Bridge Street; this was the property also used by the Royal Humane Society, and was next door to Brunels’ home at 30 Bridge Street in which the Brunels lived between 1824-35, before they moved to 26 Cow Court, Rotherhithe (the house pictured in LDBRU:2025.1).
Transcription of the Letter
[Abbreviations silently expanded; manuscript additions in italics]
Committee Room; 29 Bridge Street: Blackfriars
11th August 1828
Sir,
The committee appointed by the general meeting of Friends to the Thames Tunnel Undertaking respectfully beg leave to enclose to You a copy of the Resolutions of that meeting, together with a Report of the Directors; an extract from the proceedings of the Company, and a form of the Debentures to be issue to subscribers in the earnest hope, that the Undertaking may be deemed worth of Your support; — and they will be happy to be honoured with a favourable answer.
I have the honor to be:
Sir
Your most obedient servant
James Bandinel
Honorary Secretary
Colonel Barry
References
[1] Two further copies of this letter have thus far been identified: one is a copy dated 29 July 1828 sent to John Soane, now Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, Archives 7.L.13.1; and another of unknown date sent to Richard Bayley, now Norfolk Record Office, Norwich, WKC 6/407, 403×9.
[2] 9 Geo. IV c. lxiii, §§ II, IV, VII, IX, XXII.
[3] On the banking crisis of 1825, see e.g. Robert Cruikshank’s Feb. 1825 satirical print entitled ‘The bubble burst – or the ghost of an old act of Parliament!’ (British Museum, London, 1868,0808.8643). On the falling TTC share price, see e.g. Hammersley & Co. to William Henry Fox Talbot, 20 Dec. 1825, The Correspondence of William Henry Fox Talbot Online; or Charles Birkett to Edward Codrington, 19 April 1827, Institution of Civil Engineers, London, document currently uncatalogued, loose in a box of papers gathered for the 1996 Thames Tunnel exhibition.
[4] These early attempts at raising capital are detailed in Brunel’s 1823 and 1824 diaries, now Brunel Institute, Bristol, DM1306/1/1/1 and DM1306/1/1/2; and in Derek Portman, The Thames Tunnel: A Business Venture (unpublished MS, 1998), pp. 47-96.
[5] See e.g. ‘The Thames Tunnel’, The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 21 Aug. 1828, p. 1 (Investor list dated 9 Aug. 1828).
[6] Charles Butler to Thomas Jevons, 28 Aug. 1828, in British Library, London, C.194.b.257, fol. 103v: ‘In reference to our first appeal to the Public, I had it in contemplation to propose to the Directors that I should visit every principal City/Town in England, Scotland & Ireland, to solicit aid to our work, but when I calculated the time which would be occupied in doing this and also other objections and the chances of failure, I abandoned the idea: — but, may I take the liberty of asking you whether, in your opinion, any good can be done by a visit to Liverpool, to solicit subscriptions for Debentures?’
[7] See esp. David R. Fisher and Stephen Farrell, ‘BARRY, John Maxwell (1767-1838), of Newtownbarry, co. Wexford,’ History of Parliament Online, online at: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/barry-john-1767-1838
[8] Janice Cavell, ‘Lady Lucy Barry and Evangelical Reading on the First Franklin Expedition,’ Arctic 63.2 (2010), 131-40 (p. 132).
[9] On paper from this mill, see esp. W. G. Duncome, Eynsford Paper Mill (Farningham and Eynsford Local History Society, 2001); and Paul Bower, Tuner’s Later Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of His Drawing Papers, 1820-51 (London: Tate Gallery, 1999), p. 64.
[10] From the beginning of the Thames Tunnel project, Marc Brunel had employed as copyists people ‘taken from among the persons attached to or comprehended in the weekly pay’ (Marc Brunel to Directors of the Thames Tunnel Company, 19 Feb. 1840, Institution of Civil Engineers, London, TT/CE/4/11, fol. 1r). A further example of this same hand has been identified in a manuscript letter of thanks for subscriptions received, incidentally produced the same date this letter was signed (James Bandinel to Thomas Jevons, 11 Aug. 1828, British Library, London, C.194.b.257, fol. 102r).
[11] On Butler as copyist, cf. Marc Brunel, Diary, 21 June 1824, Brunel Institute, Bristol, DM1306/1/1/1, fol. 75: ‘Mr. Butler was with me for the purpose of preparing the Letters that were to be written to different persons for obtaining materials and Iron Works for the Tunnel.’
[12] See H. C. G. Matthew, ‘Bandinel, James’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/1277.
[13] See e.g. various references in Marc Brunel’s 1824 diary, Brunel Institute, Bristol, DM1306/1/1/1; and also e.g. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Diary (5 June 1831), Brunel Institute, Bristol, DM1306/2/3/1, fol. 123: ‘Dined at Mr Bandinel’s with my father [Marc Brunel] and mother [Sophia Kingdom]’. For Bandinel’s godchild, see The National Archives, London, PROB 11-2097-166 (Will of James Bandinel, written 24 Oct. 1848, proved 11 Aug. 1849).
[14] For Bandinel’s share, see Parliamentary Archives, London, HL/PO/PB/3/Plan1824/T2, fol. 31r; for his presence at the 1827 banquet, see ‘Dinner at the Thames Tunnel’, Evening Standard, 12 Nov. 1827.