Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the son of the French-born engineer Marc Brunel. Educated in England and France, he joined his father as a young man on the first tunnel under the River Thames, and in 1828 nearly drowned when it flooded. He won the competition to design the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon Gorge in Bristol, which was finished after his death. At twenty-seven he became chief engineer of the Great Western Railway from London to Bristol, designing its bridges, tunnels and stations, including the Box Tunnel and Paddington Station, and he chose a wider track gauge for smoother, faster trains. He then designed three record-breaking steamships: the Great Western, built to cross the Atlantic; the Great Britain, the first large iron ship driven by a screw propeller; and the enormous Great Eastern, which later laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable. He also designed a prefabricated hospital for the Crimean War. He worked and smoked constantly and suffered a stroke just before the Great Eastern's first voyage. He died in 1859.

Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia