The following article has been research and written by Gloria Dixon who contacted me in 2021 for family and background information about Robert Pearson Brereton. This I was happy to do and with Gloria's permission I have added her research to this page.
On April 4 1818 in a small town in Norfolk, called Blakeney, Robert Pearson Brereton was born, a son to Robert John Brereton and his wife Sarah Pearson Brereton (nee Walton).
In 1836 Robert joined I K Brunel and after his apprenticeship became Brunel’s chief assistant in 1844. Brunel described him as a peculiarly energetic persevering young man.
He was recruited by the staff of Brunel in 1836 to be one of the seven resident engineers, supervising the construction of the Great Western Railway. After the Great Western Railway was completed, he carried out similar tasks on other railways that Brunel was building. For example, in 1845 he was one of Brunel’s resident engineers on the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway but Brunel sent him to Italy to sort out the problems with the construction of the Turin–Genoa railway, commenting in a letter to Herschel Babbage, his resident engineer in Italy, that he thought to send Brereton over to him for help with the tunnel, as Brereton had more experience than any man he knew. However, Brereton complained to Brunel that he could not stay to supervise the survey of the railway as it had turned into a frustrating brush with the Italian officialdom at every stage of his work.
The young Brereton lost an eye in an explosion while working at Paddington on the Great Western Railway. He is depicted wearing a black eye patch alongside Brunel, in a mural in the Hayward Room of the SS Great Britain in Bristol. This was painted in 1997 with detail taken from a portrait hanging in the Bristol Technical College.
He married his second cousin, Anna Margaretta Brereton at Brinton in Norfolk in 1842. It was a double wedding, the other couple being Richard James Ward, another of Brunel’s engineers, and Anna’s sister, Elizabeth Maria Brereton. Charles David Brereton, uncle of the brides, married them. He was the rector of Little Massingham Norfolk.
Richard James Ward was a civil engineer, and in 1836 he too had been articled to Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In Ward’s obituary it states he was articled for four years, and that on completion of his apprenticeship, he worked on various railways as a resident engineer for the rest of his life. These two young men probably first met in Brunel’s offices where they worked. Ward was born in January 1817 and Brereton in 1818. They must have become friends, and presumably Brereton introduced Ward to his two Norfolk cousins, Anna and Elizabeth, the daughters of William and Sarah Brereton of Brinton.
Robert & Anna had a son, Robert Brereton Brereton, who sadly died when he was only six days old. He was their only child.
RPB became Brunel’s assistant in 1847 and remained in this post until Brunel’s death in 1859. His signature appears on drawings of the bridge at Chepstow, which had been prepared in Brunel’s London office around 1850.
One of Brunel’s largest and long-running projects was the construction of the Royal Albert Bridge over the River Tamar in Cornwall, as part of the railway. In 1854 Brereton was sent as assistant to help William Glenny, resident engineer for the bridge, who was in bad health. Brereton was instrumental in developing ways to excavate underwater to prepare for the construction of the central pier. In 1857 he assisted Brunel, when the first truss was raised to give a clear 100 feet, as set down by the Admiralty, for the naval ships to pass under.
He supervised nearly all the stages of construction because Brunel was first too busy and then too ill to attend. He took charge of the floating out and raising of the second truss, which was accomplished as smoothly as the first. Throughout the thirteen months occupied by the raising of the two spans, Brereton supervised the majority of the 140 lifts which had to be engineered in order to position the truss correctly. The Chairman of the Cornwall Railway speaking in 1859 following the opening of the Royal Albert Bridge described Brereton as: Always ready, always able and always full of energy. Speaking at a meeting at the Institute of Civil Engineers some twenty years later in 1881, Brereton said of the construction of the bridge:
On no occasion was any interruption felt from the result of lateral wind-pressure, although winds frequently blew hard: and on one occasion, when the tube had nearly reached its full height, the wind blew a very strong gale, men were scarcely able to stand, and hats could not be kept on, the tube at one end resting on packings on the pier, and the other end poised upon the press rams which were run out to the full 3 feet stroke, not connected together, and with only nine inches length of turned surface at the collars. No indications of excessive strain or nip were shown upon the guide slides which had been provided for such a contingency. He then went on to criticise the Board of Trade requirement that for a velocity of 110 miles per hour the design wind pressure would be 56 pounds per square foot, which has since proved to be nearly double the correct figure.
In 1861 Robert P Brereton, aged 43, was recorded on the census as a civil engineer, who lived in Marylebone with Anna M Brereton, 43, his wife, Elizabeth A Brereton, 44, his sister, and his nephew Cuthbert A Brereton, aged 10.
In the years after Brunel’s death in 1859, Brereton took over the responsibility for completing some of Brunel’s outstanding projects finishing the West Somerset railway in 1862. He worked out of Brunel’s office at 17-18 Duke Street, London for several years, and Brunel’s widow lived in the rooms above. Between 1859 and 1864 he was involved with the building of the Falmouth branch of the Cornwall Railway with its eight timber viaducts. Other railways to be completed at the time of Brunel’s death included the Bristol & South Railway Union of Wales.
Another project which he supervised was the railway from the Maesteg district to Bridgend and on to Porthcawl, but he would also undertake some new projects of his own, including a new dock at Porthcawl. Glamorgan Archives hold 32 of Brereton’s plans to build the docks, including dock gates, although it is thought this may not be the entire collection.
In June 1864, an Act of Parliament authorised the construction of a dock with entrance and gates and other works at the northern end of the existing tidal basin, the substitution of a southern entrance for the one on the side, the extension of the breakwater by 100 yards and the erection of an inner pier 70 yards long. Designed by Brereton, it was completed at a cost of £250,000 and opened on July 22, 1867. The great increase in ship’ tonnages and the competition of newer and deeper docks put Porthcawl under a great strain to survive in the 20th century; it exported 165,000 tons in 1871 of coal but within 20 years was struggling. In 1906, Porthcawl gave up coal exporting and went from dock port to seaside resort with Brereton’s inner dock filled in around the Second World War period. On September 1 1894, RPB died at the age of 76 of a tumorous growth. At the time of his death he was living at Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, London. He was buried in the family grave on September 4 1894 in the churchyard of St Nicholas Church, Blakeney, Norfolk. There is a memorial brass plaque to him in the church. Probate showed that he left in excess of £40,000 in his will.
Brereton is generally relegated to the footnotes of history – one of the invisible superheroes of engineering unlike many of the first Civil Engineers, Thomas Telford, George Stephenson or Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who are remembered today as the giants of the industrial revolution.
Researched and written by Gloria Dixon © 2021
If you have enjoyed reading this article you might consider donating to www.fosalm.org which will help restore St Andrew's Church Little Massingham. This church has been very important to the Brereton family.
