World Without Brunel?

In January 1828 during the construction of the Thames Tunnel (which would be the first successful underwater tunnel), 6 men drowned when the tunnel flooded a second time, and Brunel himself was plucked from the water barely alive. Now what if the rescuers hadn't managed to save him, what would be the ramifications of his early death?
 

scholar

Banned
In January 1828 during the construction of the Thames Tunnel (which would be the first successful underwater tunnel), 6 men drowned when the tunnel flooded a second time, and Brunel himself was plucked from the water barely alive. Now what if the rescuers hadn't managed to save him, what would be the ramifications of his early death?
Construction of underwater tunnels will be shelved for decades, or perhaps even longer. That is, unless, the tunnels have a lot of demand. In which case it may be delayed only a few years.
 
And since the Thames Tunnel was the first in the world to use a tunnelling shield, it might be that soft-soil tunnelling of any sort is set back by decades. Railways as well since some of the method Brunel used were apparently quite controversial.
 

scholar

Banned
And since the Thames Tunnel was the first in the world to use a tunnelling shield, it might be that soft-soil tunnelling of any sort is set back by decades. Railways as well since some of the method Brunel used were apparently quite controversial.
At the time they certainly were. As time goes on, however, people will begin to realize that it is theoretically sound.
 
As did I-but for the OP I think there might be a slower development of long-distance steamships. The Great Western was the first transatlantic liner, and the Great Britain, though an economic failure (actually converted into a sailing ship) was the progenitor of most passenger or cargo liners: iron hull, steam engine and screw propulsion. While Brunel was neither directly responsible for these innovations nor a naval architect, he was the sort of 'big picture' thinker, (or systems engineer, in a later parlance) required to combine nascent nautical developments. Steamships would be developed in a slower and somewhat piecemeal fashion without him, especially because the mid-19th was a less bureaucratic era.
 
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