LETTER: France, Japan and the Thames Tunnel

From Mr R. A. Hack

Sir: Your correspondents Richard Morris and Roger Morgan (27 March) describe the Thames Tunnel, which London Underground proposes to waterproof, as "a triumph of British engineering".

Its engineer, Marc Isambard Brunel, was a French royalist who learnt his craft in France, in the French navy and as chief engineer for New York, where he fled to escape the revolutionary authorities in France.

His attachment to the young Miss Kingdom whom he had met in Rouen led him to leave New York and settle in England. The son of his marriage to Miss Kingdom, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was sent to be trained in France and subsequently collaborated with his father in the construction of the the tunnel.

Surely an Anglo-French triumph of engineering.

Yours sincerely,

R. A. HACK

Budleigh Salterton, Devon