No Brunel

I have already described why I would never have made an engineer; it is a sad story, but I was cheered recently by reading the biography of a man who did have some talent in this direction but who is remembered chiefly for the many things he constructed which later turned out to be defective; this would undoubtedly have happened to me had I persisted in following the career I mistakenly started.


CULVERT, Sir Roderick 1801-1882.
Civil engineer, born in Manchester and largely self-educated. He early specialised in canal construction, and his experience in passing water under roads and tramways served him well when he threw himself into the problems created by the rapid expansion of the railways in the 1840s. His work both in Britain and in the United States often suffered from hasty execution and poor materials. He was knighted in 1865.

James Cochrane