{"product_id":"tunnel-another-bubble-burst-es6kn6iy","title":"The Tunnel!!! or another Bubble Burst!","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRare. No copy in the British Museum.\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a copy in the Science Museum, John Rylands Library and at the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA fabulous impression of a savage satire on Brunel’s Thames Tunnel published in the same month that, while under construction, the tunnel flooded and required extensive repairs. The following year the tunnel again flooded and killed six workmen and nearly took the life of Brunel himself. The satire illustrates how the tunnel had become a fashionable place for people to visit and admire the engineering marvel but also alludes to the great financial disaster, the South Sea Bubble.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe print shows water pouring into the Thames Tunnel while workmen and fashionable visitors flee. A sign in the tunnel reads: “The Tunnel being perfectly DRY and SAFE the Public are invited to visit it every day Sundays excepted. Admittance One Shilling.” Brunel himself, standing on a ladder beside the gushing water, says, “My hypothesis is gone to the devil.” One workman exclaims, “Run! Run! every mothers son of you! or by J—s wel be all drowned, O my poor Wife and children…”. The visitors who are fleeing scream: “The devil burn the Tunnel I say! faith I thought no good could come of it for the poor watermen would be all Starved.” One gentlemen says: “If I can get home before this transpires I’ll sell my shares immediately.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe text below the print is in verse and describes how angry “Old Father Thames” became angry at the excavation under the River Thames and in anger “stamp’d his foot through thick and thin \/ And through a hole he soon got in”. The poem continues:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe visitors both Beau and Belle\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSans ceremony, ran pell mell.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor their own preservation\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile Thames behind them thundering came,\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDestroy’d the great projectors fame\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSir Marc Isambard Brunel (1769-1849), the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was responsible for developing a new method of excavation for a proposed tunnel underneath the Thames which would connect Rotherhithe and Wapping. Brunel proposed a tunnelling shield which was able to support the tunnel and prevent it collapsing on the workmen as they excavated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“The project encountered extraordinary difficulties, largely on account of the unexpected nature of the geology which comprised water-bearing sands and gravels where Brunel had expected clay. Moreover there was no experience of the complexities of successful operation of such a machine. Progress was in consequence slow. The river broke into the tunnel on several occasions, calling for considerable ingenuity and much courage in filling cavities in the river bed by clay and other materials, while restoring damage sustained to the shield. A major irruption on 12 January 1828 led to suspension of the work for more than seven years, the tunnel only half completed and the budget exhausted. The restart had to await arrangements for a government loan, and removal of the original damaged shield and its replacement by a shield of improved design, more robust but generally similar in concept, in a skilfully designed chamber in the disturbed ground under the river. During the first half of the work, his son Isambard, as resident engineer, made major contributions to the solution of problems encountered, to the development of novel techniques, and to maintaining the morale of the men which, in view of the appalling conditions, remained for the most part remarkably high. Throughout their careers, father and son constantly consulted each other and each worked on several projects attributed to the other. The tunnel was completed between the two working shafts in December 1841 and opened as a pedestrian tunnel in March 1843. The vehicular access shafts were never built but in 1869 the tunnel was first used for a railway and was subsequently absorbed into London’s underground railway system.” (\u003cem\u003eODNB\u003c\/em\u003e)\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Maggs Bros.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47844095688861,"sku":"255204","price":1800.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/0045\/9677\/files\/255204_02.jpg?v=1777372925","url":"https:\/\/store.maggs.com\/products\/tunnel-another-bubble-burst-es6kn6iy","provider":"Maggs Bros.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}