Robert Howlett in this feat of engineering. This project included the well-known portrait of the "Great Eastern"’s creator and engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, standing in front of the giant launching chains on the 'checking drum' braking mechanism at John Scott Russell’s Millwall shipyard. It was taken to celebrate the launch of the world’s largest steamship, in November 1857. This image, which depicts Brunel in an industrial setting instead of a more traditional background for a portrait, has been described as "one of the first examples of environmental portraiture". Howlett died in 1858, aged 27, at his home and studio at 10 Bedford
Marc Isambard Brunel over £17,000. Brunel was a talented mechanical engineer, and did much to develop sawmill machinery, undertaking contracts for the British Government at 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 veneers, and he also designed sawmills for entrepreneurs. He also developed machinery for 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