Zerah Colburn (locomotive designer) to England to take up a job as editor of "The Engineer", Britain’s leading weekly technical journal. In this position, Colburn made friends with members of the Institutions of Civil and Mechanical Engineers and became a member of both. He gave frequent lectures and contributed at meetings. It is almost certain that while in London Colburn met Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In 1860, Colburn returned to America on the maiden voyage of the "Great Eastern", Brunel's leviathan steamship. In America he launched a new weekly engineering newspaper, "The Engineer", but this lasted only a few months and Colburn returned to England
Isambard Owen Isambard Owen Sir (Herbert) Isambard Owen (28 December 1850 – 14 January 1927) was a British physician and university academic. He was the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol and a deputy Chancellor of the University of Wales. Owen was born in Chepstow in Monmouthshire, south Wales. At the time his father, William Owen, later chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, was building the South Wales Railway under Isambard Kingdom Brunel, from whom Isambard Owen received his unusual name. He was educated at The King's School, Gloucester, Rossall School and Downing College, Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences.