Editing Marc Isambard Brunel (section)

== Britain ==
While Brunel was in the United States, Sophia Kingdom had remained in Rouen and during the [[Reign of Terror]], she was arrested as an English spy and daily expected to be executed. She was only saved by the fall of [[Robespierre]] in June 1794. In April 1795 Kingdom was able to leave France and travel to London.{{sfnp|Bagust|2006|pp=22–50}}{{Page range too broad|date=April 2025}}

When Brunel arrived from the United States, he immediately travelled to London and made contact with Kingdom. They were married on 1 November 1799 at [[St Andrew, Holborn]]. In 1801 she gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Sophia;<ref>Baptism Register accounts as baptism 27.1.01</ref> in 1804 their second daughter Emma; and in 1806 their son [[Isambard Kingdom]], who became a great engineer.{{sfnp|Bagust|2006|pp=22–50}}{{Page range too broad|date=April 2025}} Isambard Kingdom grew up in [[Lindsey House]] in [[Chelsea, London]].
[[File:PulleyShip.JPG|thumb|One multiple- and one single-sheave pulley block for rigging on a sailing ship]]
During the summer of 1799 Brunel was introduced to [[Henry Maudslay]], a talented engineer who had worked for [[Joseph Bramah]], and had recently started his own business. Maudslay made working models of the machines for making [[pulley]] blocks, and Brunel approached [[Samuel Bentham]], the Inspector General of Naval Works. In April 1802 Bentham recommended the installation of Brunel's block-making machinery at [[Portsmouth Block Mills]]. Brunel's machine could be operated by unskilled workers, at ten times the previous rate of production.{{sfnp|Gilbert|1965|pp=4-6}} Altogether 45 machines were installed at Portsmouth, and by 1808 the plant was producing 130,000 blocks per year. Unfortunately for Brunel, the Admiralty vacillated over payment, despite the fact that Brunel had spent more than £2,000 of his own money on the project. In August 1808 they agreed to pay £1,000 on account, and two years later they consented to a payment of just over £17,000.{{sfnp|Bagust|2006|pp=22–50}}{{Page range too broad|date=April 2025}}

Brunel was a talented mechanical engineer, and did much to develop sawmill machinery, undertaking contracts for the [[British Government]] at [[Chatham, Kent|Chatham]] and [[Woolwich]] dockyards, building on his experience at the Portsmouth Block Mills. He built a sawmill at [[Battersea]], London (burnt down in 1814 and rebuilt by 1816), which was designed to produce [[wood veneer|veneers]], and he also designed sawmills for entrepreneurs. He also developed machinery for [[mass production|mass-producing]] soldiers' boots, but before this could reach full production, demand ceased due to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Brunel was made a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] in 1814. In 1828, he was elected a foreign member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]]. Brunel was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1834.{{sfnp|American Academy of Arts and Sciences|p=73}} In 1845 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]].{{sfnp|Waterston|Shearer|2006|p=131}}