Victorian Railway Engineers

Conference of Engineers at Britannia Bridge, by John Lucas, is a contemporary interpretation of one of the great feats of Victorian engineering: the completion in 1849 of the Britannia Bridge, a tubular-girder railway bridge spanning the Menai Strait and linking the island of Anglesey to the Welsh mainland. Robert Stephenson, designer of the bridge, sits with his hand on his plans and other great Victorian engineering figures posed about him, including Joseph Locke and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, seated together at the right. The great achievements of the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Steam made Victorian Britain the wealthiest and most technologically sophisticated nation on earth, and the triumphal air of the portrait group indicates the pride taken in that fact.

Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

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Victorian Britain; Industrial Revolution

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