Brunel – Tunnel under the Thames

```html

An early plan

If you are travelling south on the London Overground and are passing through Wapping please stop reading your paper (or whatever) and look out of the window. As you head for Rotherhithe (which is the next stop on the line) you will be entering the first tunnel in the world to have been built under a navigable waterway. It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel assisted by his better known son Isambard Kingdom. The tunnel took even longer to build than the Elizabeth Line.

Marc Brunel came from Normandy and from a long line of French yeoman farmers. As the younger son he was destined for the priesthood and was sent to the St. Nicaise seminary in Rouen to train. He showed a great aptitude for drawing and maths but hated Latin and Greek. During his holidays he attached himself to the village carpenter and proved his creative skills. Eventually the principal of the seminary persuaded Marc’s father that his son would be wasted in the priesthood.

Marc then spent 6 years in the navy before coming ashore in 1792 and returning to live in Rouen. There he met his future wife, Sophia Kingdom, whose father was a naval contractor in Plymouth. She had been sent to Rouen to learn French. They fell in love. This was the time of the French Revolution and as a staunch Royalist Marc was forced to flee. He went, initially, to the United States where he acquired a reputation as an architect and engineer. He acquired U.S. citizenship and was appointed Chief Engineer of New York.

In 1798 Marc was invited to dine with Major-General Hamilton (a British aide-de-camp) to meet a fellow Frenchman, M. Delabigarre, who had just arrived from England. Talk over dinner turned to the expansion of the English naval fleet and M. Delabigarre mentioned the crude method used in England for making, by hand, the blocks required for the rigging of the Navy’s men of war. (A 74 gun ship of the line required no less than 1,400 blocks.) Taylors of Southampton at that time enjoyed a monopoly on their manufacture.

This conversation set Marc thinking and he designed a block making machine. He subsequently took his drawing and went to England with a view to starting a new lucrative line of business. Throughout his time in the States he had exchanged many letters with his beloved Sophia so this was an added reason for moving to England. They were to be married in November 1799.

Marc had arrived in Falmouth in March 1799 armed with a letter of introduction from General Hamilton to the Earl Spencer of Althorp who was then First Lord of the Admiralty under Pitt. Through his connection with the Spencers, Marc was introduced to Sir Samuel Bentham, Inspector General of Naval Works who was himself an accomplished engineer. Sir Samuel already had his eye on the expiry of Taylors’ block supply contract and was planning a block making plant in Portsmouth. He recognised the significance of Marc’s beautiful drawings of his block making machine.

It was arranged that the nationally famous Lambeth based firm of machine-tool makers, Maudslay Sons & Field, would build the machinery and that Marc would supervise its installation in Portsmouth.

Whilst all this was going on Sophia was producing a family – Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born on April 9th 1806.

Marc moved on to other projects including one which involved the design of a machine to manufacture army boots. None of these projects proved to be a financial success and in May 1821 he was arrested for debt and he and poor Sophia found themselves in the King’s Bench Debtors prison. Through the good offices of the Duke of Wellington he was released from prison and continued his career of ingenious invention but still with little thought of money.

Isambard inherited his father’s inquiring mind, skills as a draftsman and his understanding of design and workmanship. Whilst still at school he studied Navier’s plans for a suspension bridge over the Seine in Paris and predicted that it would collapse – which it did. He completed his formal education in France and was then apprenticed to the horologist, Louis Breguet, who was the supreme maker of chronometers at the time – more skills acquired.

At the start of the 19th Century there was a need to have a new land connection between the north and south banks of the Thames to link the new dock areas on each side of the river. Several attempts to build a tunnel ended in failure largely because of the difficult ground conditions – soft clay and quicksands are not ideal for tunnelling.

In 1814 Marc Brunel proposed to Emperor Alexander I of Russia that he should build a tunnel under the River Neva in St Petersburg. This plan was turned down and a bridge was built instead. Brunel continued to refine a new tunnelling technique which involved a revolutionary tunnelling shield – more details in due course.

In 1823 Marc produced a plan for the construction of a tunnel linking Rotherhithe and Wapping. On February 17th 1824 he gave a lecture to the Institution of Civil Engineers outlining his Tunnel plans. On the following day more than 100 people attended a meeting at the City of London Tavern at which a committee was set up and a list of subscriptions for shares was opened.

Funding was found from investors who included the Duke of Wellington and in 1824 the Thames Tunnel Company was formed by Act of Parliament and Marc Brunel was appointed Engineer to the Company on an annual salary of £1,000. He was also to receive a payment of £5,000 for use of his patent when tunnelling had reached a certain specified point and a further £5,000 when the first public toll was received.

Tunnelling starts

It is said that Marc Brunel’s tunnelling technique was derived from studying the methods of the Teredo Navalis or shipworm which tunnels into ship timbers. It digs with shell-like protrusions on either side of its head and then excretes the excavated wood through its body and uses it to line the tunnel as it moves forward.

Marc devised an iron frame facing the direction of tunnelling containing a large number of “cells”. Each cell was to contain one miner. The tunnel face at the front end of each cell was divided into small areas each covered by a removable “poling board”.

The miner would remove one board at a time only, dig out the small area of tunnel face to a depth of several inches, replace the board and then move on to the next one and so on. When all the miners had excavated their parts of the face the cells would be moved forward a few inches by screw jacks at the rear of the shield and the digging process would be repeated.

The shield itself held up the roof of the tunnel until the bricklayers just behind the shield had given the tunnel a permanent brick lining which was to be 2ft 6 inches thick and using “Roman” cement which owed its strength to the incorporation of very expensive volcanic rock as used by the Romans in building the Colosseum.

Before work started Marc had further developed his shield so that 3 cells, one on top of each other, formed an independent 21 ft. 4 inch vertical frame. There would be 36 cells in total in 12 frames – 6 frames for each of the twin tunnels which were to be dug. In an article at the time in the Illustrated London News it was suggested that each group of 3 vertical cells looked like “volumes on the shelf of a bookcase”.

When building a tunnel under a river it is necessary to dig a shaft of sufficient depth so that the tunnelling process can begin at a point well below the bed of the river. Marc’s solution was to sink a large shaft on the south bank at Rotherhithe at a distance of 150 ft back from the river.

The next step was to construct an iron ring of 50 ft diameter above ground. A brick wall 42 ft high and 3 ft thick was then built on top of the ring. Marc laid the first brick and Isambard (now working on the project with his father and still only 18 years old) laid the second.

A powerful steam driven pump (designed by Marc and built by Henry Maudslay) was then erected on the top of the shaft to bring the spoil from the diggings to the surface and to operate the pumps which would keep shaft and tunnel free of water during the construction process.

It was estimated that this above ground structure, when completed, weighed 1,000 tons. Workers then removed the soil from under the metal foundation ring and the shaft gradually sank under its own weight – rather like a pastry cutter.

At one point the shaft got stuck. 50,000 more bricks were added and when this did not achieve its aim Marc ordered the pumps to stop. The flooding of the shaft softened the ground underneath the iron base ring and the shaft resumed its downward journey and finally reached its intended depth. (Lessons were learned and when it came to building the shaft at Wapping it was slightly tapered to ensure that it did not get stuck.)

This was not the end of the excavations as the shaft needed foundations and an opening needed to be created on the north side for the installation of the digging shield. To achieve this the diggers continued downward for another 20 feet and bricklayers finished the walls leaving a 36ft wide opening for the tunnelling shield.

The 12 elements of the shield (each 3 ft wide, 21 ft high and 6 ft deep and weighing 7 tons) were lowered into place. Digging began on November 25th 1825. This digging involved 36 miners on each of two 8 hour shifts working on an 800 sq. foot frontage.

And then the fun started!

Marc fell ill before tunnelling even began as did the resident engineer, John Armstrong for whom the stress proved too much. By this time a twenty year-old Isambard had been appointed Armstrong’s assistant. With both Marc and Armstrong out of action Isambard became the Engineer-in-charge responsible for the whole tunnelling project.

Marc had originally proposed that a drain should be built below the main tunnel to take away the water which would inevitably find its way into the main tunnel. This was vetoed by Directors of the Thames Tunnel Company on the grounds of cost.

Instead up to 40 men at a time were employed with bucket pumps to remove water from under the shield to the sump at the bottom of the shaft from which it was pumped to the surface. At the time the Thames was pretty much an open sewer and the stench in the tunnel was appalling. What came to be known as Tunnel Sickness took its toll and left some workmen permanently blind.

Isambard throughout his relatively short life was renowned for his extraordinary energy. It is said that during the early stages of the building of the tunnel he would often work in the tunnel for 36 hours at a stretch taking brief cat-naps on the wooden staging behind the digging shield.

By February 1827 the tunnel had progressed 300 ft from the south bank and the Directors of the Tunnel Company decided that some useful revenue could be generated by charging members of the public to view the work. Marc protested, pointing out that at any moment the tunnel might flood with disastrous consequences for any sightseers present.

Nonetheless by April of 1827 up to 700 visitors at 1 shilling a head were being admitted on a daily basis.

By the middle of May 1827 the increasing amount of water in the tunnel became a matter of concern. On May 18th Marc escorted a party of visitors along the tunnel. He later wrote, “I attended Lady Raffles to the frames, most uneasy all the while as I had a presentiment…”

That evening, as the tide was rising, water suddenly came roaring through shield frame number 11 sweeping one of the miners out of the frame. The miners ran to escape the tidal wave and met up with Isambard and another engineer at the visitors’ barrier. They then all fled for their lives.

One of the engineers in the tunnel at the time, Beamish, later wrote: “The effect was splendid beyond description; the water as it rose became more and more vivid from the reflected lights of the gas.” A great wave swept down the tunnel bringing with it empty cement barrels and baulks of timber.

Brunel and the others caught by the flood reached the spiral staircase at the bottom of the shaft and started their climb just in time as the bottom section of the stairway was swept away in the flood.

When they reached the surface they heard a faint cry from below and realised that the old engineman, Tillet, who had been checking his pumps, had been left behind. Isambard called for a rope and then slid down one of the iron ties. He found Tillet, secured a rope round his waist and the pair were then hauled to the surface.

An incident which could have caused loss of life ended happily with several very wet engineers but no fatalities.

The Brunels were not daunted by this disaster though. Marc records: “The Rotherhithe curate, in his sermon today, adverting to the accident, said that it was but a just judgement on the presumptuous aspirations of mortal men, etc…. the poor man.”

What to do? Marc borrowed a diving bell from the East India Docks company and went down to inspect the damage. Isambard went down the shaft and rowed himself to the point where the roof had collapsed.

They established that the damage had been caused by gravel dredgers which had been active in the river above the tunnel and had dug too close to the river bed. Amazingly the brickwork of the tunnel had survived. Iron rods were laid across the gap and over a period of three weeks enough clay was laid on top to seal the hole and pumping of the water could start.

In August 1827 Marc Brunel suffered a stroke which left him partly paralysed and this meant that Isambard was left in sole charge of the recovery exercise. It took until November 1827 to clear the tunnel so that work could start once more.

In a defiant gesture Isambard organised a celebratory banquet which was held on November 10th in the tunnel itself just to prove his confidence in the safety of the restored structure. The western tunnel was draped in crimson, a long table was set with silver and crystal and a banquet was served to 50 selected guests.

The Band of the Coldstream Guards played – the noise in the confined space was said to have been deafening. In the eastern tunnel a simpler meal was served to the 120 miners and bricklayers involved in the project. (The figures at the front of the picture painted by George Jones depicts Marc and Isambard – a work of fiction in that Marc was still too unwell to attend the banquet.)

Work on the tunnel resumes

It was immediately recognised that the quality of the earth being removed was poor and on January 12th 1827 disaster struck again.

Isambard was working in the shield when a torrent of water washed him and the two miners he was working with out of the shield. Isambard’s leg was trapped by a fallen timber but he managed to free himself.

All the lights were extinguished and the tunnel began to fill as he and several miners made their way to the foot of the shaft. Finding the stairway blocked by escaping miners he made for the nearby visitors staircase.

Before he could reach the staircase he found himself being swept upwards as the shaft flooded eventually finding himself, more dead than alive, bobbing like a cork at the top of the 42 foot shaft. Six men died including the two miners with whom Isambard had been working on the shield.

Then it was back to inspecting the damage from the diving bell. Isambard himself supervised the inspection from the diving-bell’s barge where he lay on a mattress nursing his damaged leg. It transpired that he had suffered internal injuries which put him out of action for more than 3 months.

He convalesced in Clifton where his always active mind mulled the design of a bridge to span the gorge.

So, Marc found himself back in sole charge. He established that the damage to the tunnel roof was much more serious this time. Where 150 tons of clay had sealed the previous hole this time thirty times as much clay had to be used to seal the hole.

It was not until the end of March 1827 that with the hole sealed it was possible to start pumping again and it was possible to access the shield once more. In May workmen were able start removing the silt which had accumulated in the tunnel and on May 26th it was safe for a first group of interested visitors to inspect the damage.

Work began on restoring the shield.

Not surprisingly the project was now running out of money but with the very active support of the Duke of Wellington there was a new issue of shares seeking to raise £200,000. Three weeks after the share issue only £9,600 had been raised and there was no alternative but to abandon operations and brick-up the tunnel with the shields still in place.

Perhaps the lowest point for the Brunels was reached when the Times newspaper named the tunnel “the great bore” and the poet Thomas Hood suggested in his “Ode to Monsieur Brunel” that the tunnel should be turned into a wine cellar.

Finishing the tunnel

It became evident that the project could not be completed without financial support from the Government and finally, after several abortive attempts, Parliament authorised the Treasury to provide £247,000 to complete the tunnel with the first payment of £30,000 reaching the Tunnel company on December 5th 1834 – nearly 7 years after the tunnel was bricked up.

Starting in August 1834 the old shield (now rusty and beyond restoration) was removed and a new modified shield was assembled. Work on the tunnel resumed in March 1836 and in April it was recorded that the tunnel was progressing at the rate of 4ft 6ins each week despite trouble with the bricklayers who had discovered the pleasures of the local pubs and were frequently too drunk to work their next shift.

The year 1836 brought more problems with an increase in the rate of flooding and also sickness amongst the workmen due to the foul air. Then came trial by fire. Coal miners knew all about “fire damp” where accumulated gas explodes in the presence of candle lighting.

Then in August came further floods which drove the workmen out of the tunnel and work stopped yet again whilst they dumped huge quantities of clay from above to staunch the flow.

Marc’s comment was: “I have been honoured with two visitations of Father Thames during the first half of the work and cannot hope to escape without one at least in the other.”

Marc would like to have started work from the north side of the River at Wapping or at least to have been able to run a ventilation tunnel from that side to improve the air quality but the Treasury, which held the purse strings, would not agree to this.

By March 20th 1837 the tunnel had reached a length of 775 ft with 150 ft to go before it reached the low water mark on the Wapping side. January 1838 brought another serious flood filling the tunnel in a mere 15 minutes. More repairs were carried out and within 3 weeks work could resume.

Marc and Sophia were now living in a house in Rotherhithe close to the tunnel shaft and Sophia became concerned for Marc’s health as being so close to “the office” he got into the habit of getting up every two hours during the night to check on the night shift.

She came up with the ingenious idea of rigging up a bucket with rope and pulley to the bedroom window so that the night engineer on duty could send Marc samples of the soil being evacuated from the diggings and he could send down a note with his instructions.

Wapping low water point was reached on August 22nd 1839. Tunnelling continued throughout the 1839/40 Winter but a further flood occurred on April 3rd 1840 leaving a huge hole on the Wapping foreshore.

Then, a breakthrough – in June Marc was able to take possession of the land on which the Wapping shaft was to be built. Once the shaft had been built to the correct depth tunnelling resumed and on November 16th 1840 the shield reached the bottom of the shaft where it was dismantled and sold for £900 as scrap.

A permanent pump house was added at the Rotherhithe end of the tunnel and began work of putting the finishing touches to the shafts. Permanent stairways were installed and the walls of the shafts were whitewashed.

Meanwhile the twin tunnels were paved and tiled and on August 1842 sightseers were admitted for the first time though it was not until March 25th 1843 that the tunnel was ready to open to the public.

The Grand Opening

Early on the morning of March 25th 1843 crowds began to gather at the Rotherhithe entrance. By early afternoon crowds could no longer be held back and stampeded down the spiral staircase before the official opening ceremony had started.

At 4 p.m. a cannon was fired and the band of the Fusilier Guards marched through the tunnel playing “See the Conquering Hero Comes.” The official guests, led by Marc, walked through to the Wapping end of the tunnel and then returned to Rotherhithe.

The public were admitted at 6 p.m. and in the first 24 hours no less than 50,000 visitors paid their pennies and entered. By July 11th barely 15 weeks after the opening the tunnel received its millionth visitor. On July 26th Queen Victoria and Prince Albert arrived by barge to inspect the tunnel.

Very quickly the tunnel became a place of commerce and entertainment with stalls occupying little alcoves in the tunnel walls selling tourist souvenirs inscribed with messages such as “A present from the Thames Tunnel”. Sadly, by the late 1850s the tunnel had become seedy and run-down and the haunt of tramps, thieves and drunks.

The original objective for the tunnel had involved 40 foot wide spiral roadway approaches which would have allowed horse-drawn carriages to use the tunnel but these roadways were never built. It soon became apparent that as a pedestrian only crossing of the Thames it would never be profitable.

There were still good ferry services operating across the Thames and pedestrians were daunted by the 100 step stairways at each end.

During this period railway development was booming and in 1865 the East London Railway was incorporated with a remit to build a downstream river crossing and in September of that year Brunel’s Tunnel was sold to the railway company for £200,000.

By 1869 steam trains were using the tunnel though sadly many of the original architectural features were destroyed when the tunnel was modified.

Now forming part of the London Overground Line there is still much of the Brunel structure to be seen. The Wapping shaft still forms the entrance to Wapping station. Whilst a lift has been installed the platforms are still accessible using the original stairway attached to the walls of the shaft.

It is still possible to see the sixty arches between the north and southbound tunnels. The Rotherhithe shaft is accessible from the Brunel Museum which is housed in the original Pumping House – both worth a visit.

```