Robert Howlett Robert Howlett Robert Howlett (born 3 July 1831 in Theberton, Suffolk, and died at 10 Bedford Place, Campden Hill, Kensington, London on 2 December 1858), was a pioneering British photographer whose pictures are widely exhibited in major galleries. Howlett produced portraits of Crimean War heroes, genre scenes and landscapes. His photographs include the iconic picture of Isambard Kingdom Brunel which was part of a commission by the "Illustrated Times" ) to document the construction of the world's largest steamship, the SS "Great Eastern". He exhibited at the London Photographic Society and published "“On the Various Methods of Printing Photographic Pictures
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