A bronze statue of

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "on ...

, also known as Brunel Monument or the Isambard Brunel Monument, by

Carlo Marochetti Baron Pietro Carlo Giovanni Battista Marochetti (14 January 1805 – 29 December 1867) was an Italian-born French sculptor who worked in France, Italy and Britain. He completed many public sculptures, often in a neo-classical style, plus re ...

, stands on the

Victoria Embankment Victoria Embankment is part of the Thames Embankment, a road and river-walk along the north bank of the River Thames in London. It runs from the Palace of Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge in the City of London, and acts as a major thoroughfare ...

in London, England, at the west end of Temple Place. The statue rests on a Portland stone pedestal, with flanking screens and benches, by the architect

Richard Norman Shaw Richard Norman Shaw RA (7 May 1831 – 17 November 1912), also known as Norman Shaw, was a British architect who worked from the 1870s to the 1900s, known for his country houses and for commercial buildings. He is considered to be among the g ...

Description

The 2.45m bronze statue portrays Brunel standing casually, bareheaded, with his left leg slightly forward. The figure wears contemporary

Victorian dress Victorian fashion consists of the various fashions and trends in British culture that emerged and developed in the United Kingdom and the British Empire throughout the Victorian era, roughly from the 1830s through the 1890s. The period saw m ...

frock coat A frock coat is a formal men's coat characterised by a knee-length skirt cut all around the base just above the knee, popular during the Victorian and Edwardian periods (1830s–1910s). It is a fitted, long-sleeved coat with a centre vent at th ...

waistcoat A waistcoat ( UK and Commonwealth, or ; colloquially called a weskit), or vest ( US and Canada), is a sleeveless upper-body garment. It is usually worn over a dress shirt and necktie and below a coat as a part of most men's formal wear. ...

, shirt, bow tie, and trousers, with a pair of dividers in his hands, but without the characteristic

top hat A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditional ...

or cigar in the widely recognised 1857 photograph. He gazes upstream under the arches of

Waterloo Bridge Waterloo Bridge () is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at t ...

towards

Hungerford Bridge The Hungerford Bridge crosses the River Thames in London, and lies between Waterloo Bridge and Westminster Bridge. Owned by Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd (who use its official name of Charing Cross Bridge) it is a steel truss railway bridge ...

, although Brunel's Hungerford Bridge was removed in 1860 and the chains used to complete

Clifton Suspension Bridge The Clifton Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Avon Gorge and the River Avon, linking Clifton in Bristol to Leigh Woods in North Somerset. Since opening in 1864, it has been a toll bridge, the income from which provides f ...

. The tall square Portland stone pedestal has flanking walls topped with scrolls incorporating benches below was commissioned from Shaw, and bears the inscription "/ / ".

Background

A memorial committee of the

Institute of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, wh ...

commissioned the sculpture in 1860, some months after Brunel's death on 14 September 1859. While protracted discussions continued about an appropriate site to erect it and other statues, the bronze statue was completed in 1864 and kept in storage, and Marochetti died in 1867. The Institute of Civil Engineers had also commissioned Marochetti to make a similar statue of Brunel's rival engineer

Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson FRS HFRSE FRSA DCL (16 October 1803 – 12 October 1859) was an English civil engineer and designer of locomotives. The only son of George Stephenson, the "Father of Railways", he built on the achievements of his father ...

, who died a few weeks after Brunel on 12 October 1859, and then a third statue for the railway engineer

Joseph Locke Joseph Locke FRSA (9 August 1805 – 18 September 1860) was a notable English civil engineer of the nineteenth century, particularly associated with railway projects. Locke ranked alongside Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as on ...

who died a year later, on 18 September 1860. The intention was to erect the three statues together in a prominent position in

Parliament Square Parliament Square is a square at the northwest end of the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster in central London. Laid out in the 19th century, it features a large open green area in the centre with trees to its west, and it contai ...

, then known as the churchyard of

St Margaret's, Westminster The Church of St Margaret, Westminster Abbey, is in the grounds of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square, London, England. It is dedicated to Margaret of Antioch, and forms part of a single World Heritage Site with the Palace of Westminster ...

, near the statue of George Canning beside the offices of the Institute of Civil Engineers at

One Great George Street One Great George Street (OGGS) is a four-domed grade II listed Edwardian building used as a conference and wedding venue just off Parliament Square in Westminster, London, England. The building is the global headquarters of the Institution of ...

. After initially granting permission, the

Office of Works The Office of Works was established in the English royal household in 1378 to oversee the building and maintenance of the royal castles and residences. In 1832 it became the Works Department forces within the Office of Woods, Forests, Land Reven ...

decided against in 1868, reserving the space for statues of politicians. Ultimately the three statues were erected separately. Marochetti's statue of Joseph Locke was installed in

Locke Park Locke Park is a 47-acre public open space and one of the largest outdoor green spaces in the Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. In 1861 Phoebe Locke, widow of railway pioneer Joseph Locke donated the park for the benefit of the peop ...

, Barnsley, in 1866. The statue and its enclosure were listed at Grade II in 1986. A copy is displayed in

Barentin Barentin () is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France. Geography A town of light industry and farming situated by the banks of the river Austreberthe in the Pays de Caux, some northwest of Rouen a ...

, France, where Locke designed a railway viaduct. The statue of Robert Stephenson was donated to the London and North Western Railway, and installed on a red granite pedestal outside Euston railway station in 1871. The statue in the station forecourt is one of few surviving elements of the original station after it was redeveloped in the 1960s, and it was listed at Grade II in 1974.

Installation

For Brunel's statue, Shaw was commissioned to design a stone pedestal. His design, with novel flanking walls creating a screen, was accepted in 1874, and the pedestal was completed and the statue installed in 1877. (The National Portrait Gallery has a half-plate negative photograph of the statue by

Elliott & Fry Elliott & Fry was a Victorian photography studio founded in 1863 by Joseph John Elliott (14 October 1835 – 30 March 1903) and Clarence Edmund Fry (1840 – 12 April 1897). For a century, the firm's core business was taking and publishing photo ...

which they date to 1857, although the plinth shows Brunel's date of death in 1859.) The statue became a grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

in 1958. The statue and screen were restored in 1950, repairing damage caused by both the weather and by enemy action during the Second World War.

Copies

A bronze resin copy of Marochetti's statue was unveiled in 1973 in Havelock Square, Swindon, mounted on a tall cylindrical granite plinth with wider rim, resembling a smokestack or top hat, on the opening of the first stage of the Brunel shopping centre. It was reinstalled after building works in 2018. A half-length bust of the statue is installed beside North Street,

Saltash Saltash (Cornish: Essa) is a town and civil parish in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It had a population of 16,184 in 2011 census. Saltash faces the city of Plymouth over the River Tamar and is popularly known as "the Gateway to Corn ...

, looking east towards the Brunel's

Royal Albert Bridge The Royal Albert Bridge is a railway bridge which spans the River Tamar in England between Plymouth, Devon and Saltash, Cornwall. Its unique design consists of two lenticular iron trusses above the water, with conventional plate-girder app ...

and the

Tamar Bridge The Tamar Bridge is a suspension bridge over the River Tamar between Saltash, Cornwall and Plymouth, Devon in southwest England. It is long, running adjacent to the Royal Albert Bridge, and part of the A38, a main road between the two counti ...

."All set for Brunel events"
''Cornish Times'', 10 March 2006 File:Robert Howlett - Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the launching chains of the Great Eastern - Brunel Museum.png, Photograph of Brunel in 1857 File:Brunel statue Temple London 1857.jpg, Marochetti statue of Brunel, File:Statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.jpeg, Brunel statue in 2014 File:Statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Saltash - geograph.org.uk - 59288.jpg, Bust in

in 2003 File:Brunel Statue 12th may 2019.jpg, Modern replica of the Brunel statue in Swindon in 2018 File:Robert Stephenson statue outside Euston station - geograph.org.uk - 635246.jpg, Marochetti's bronze statue of Robert Stephenson was erected at

Euston station Euston railway station ( ; also known as London Euston) is a central London railway terminus in the London Borough of Camden, managed by Network Rail. It is the southern terminus of the West Coast Main Line, the UK's busiest inter-city railw ...

in 1870; pictured in 2007 File:Joseph Locke Memorial - Locke Park- Barnsley - geograph.org.uk - 472139.jpg, Statue of Joseph Locke, in

, Barnsley, in 2007

References

External links

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Isambard Kingdom Brunel – Victoria Embankment, London, UK
at Waymarking {{DEFAULTSORT:Brunel, Isambard Kingdom, statue, London, Victoria Embnakment Bronze sculptures in the City of Westminster Grade II listed statues in the City of Westminster Statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Victoria Embankment Monuments and memorials in London Outdoor sculptures in London Victoria Embankment