Brunel: The Man Who Built Britain

Rob Bell tells the story of the great Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, exploring his complex personality as well as his prolific achievements. Brunel was just 19 when his father appointed him his assistant and chief engineer on the Thames Tunnel. After a potentially fatal accident during the construction, he was recuperating in Bristol when he came up with a design for the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Later, he became the official engineer to the proposed Great Western Railway, and more was to follow.

Rob Bell concludes his two-part documentary series on Britain's great engineer with the story of his two masterpieces of ship design - the SS Great Britain, the great-great-grandmother of all modern ships, and the SS Great Eastern, the world's largest ship that dominated the final years of his life and generated such great controversy that it has been blamed for causing his death.