This liberally illustrated book provides a highly informative account of many of the key players in this most fascinating era in Britain’s industrial development.

It is a wonderful treasure trove of photographs, drawings, patents, and early historic images with each chapter focussing on a significant figure from the 18th, 19th or early 20th centuries. There are famous and not so famous names, but all are key to the emergence of Britain as an industrial powerhouse. The accompanying text weaves an engrossing narrative setting each person or invention in context.

The engineers are explored chronologically with links backwards and forwards to show who and what influenced them, and their influences on those who followed. Many of them worked towards the same outcomes – either together, in parallel, or sequentially – and all left their marks on today’s Britain.

Walking in the footsteps of Samuel Smiles – who 'invented' and popularised the industrial biography – this profusely illustrated book covers around 250 years, from James Brindley's early canal-building through John Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse, James Watt's steam engines, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's iron ships and Henry Bessemer's steel-making to William Arrol's bridges taking in Thomas Telford, John Rennie, John Scott Russell, The Lighthouse Stevensons, the Railway Stephensons, and others along the way. It is a remarkable selection of intriguing lives and ground-breaking advances.

This will be a wonderful and engaging read for anyone with an interest in industrial history, civil engineering and the great engineers and their incredible inventions of the time.  

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