... Company (1818) and allowed the excavation of the Thames Tunnel to commence. This eighteen year project boring under the open sewer of the Thames suffered two major disasters. Isambard himself nearly drowned in the second flooding of the tunnel and bankrupcy threatened Marc Brunel as he struggled to manage the dangerous and difficult conditions. The Tunnel has recently been renovated. Brunel Engine House and Tunnel Exhibition Rotherhithe Throughout his life Isambard, the engineering star, never stopped working on projects which called for complex organisational ability: working with clients, creating visionary designs, applying new engineering principles, budgeting and financing, and, co-ordinating and motivating people. The Clifton Bridge project demonstrates all these qualities. It was built at a time of intense competition between ports to retain business and capture substantial growth in trade and economic prosperity. Liverpool was breathing down Bristol's neck. Brunel submitted his radically new design for the bridge (1830) in a ...

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