Wiltshire's Box Tunnel is on the 40p stamp

A new set of Royal Mail stamps commemorating Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel has been launched at London’s Brunel Museum.

The six stamps, which go on sale on February 23 2006, feature images of his iconic landmarks and achievements and are issued to celebrate the bicentenary of the engineer’s birth.

“The stamps are a great way to showcase Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s most distinguished engineering feats and celebrate the life of one of the most influential and creative characters of the industrial revolution,” said museum curator Robert Hulse.

Paddington Station graces the 42p issue

Royal Albert Bridge graces the first class stamp and the other values feature Box Tunnel in Wiltshire, Paddington Station, the ss Great Eastern steamship, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Maidenhead Bridge. The images are a mixture of photographs, engravings and lithographs taken over the last 200 years.

“We are launching the new Royal Mail stamps on the very spot in London where Brunel’s own career was launched – and nearly ended!” explained the curator.

The Brunel Museum is situated in Brunel’s Engine Room in Rotherhithe, southeast London, the site of the Thames Tunnel. It was the first tunnel to be built under a river anywhere in the world and was the brainchild of Brunel’s father, Sir Marc Brunel.

The Thames Tunnel's grand opening in 1843. Nowadays the Brunel Museum organises tours of it by tube train. Courtesy Brunel Engine House Museum

Isambard Kingdom Brunel started work on the project in 1825 as a junior engineer when he was aged just 19. The tunnel took 18 years to complete and in 1828 a severe collapse trapped him underground and almost cost him his life.

The museum organises regular floodlit tours of the tunnel aboard East London line tube trains.

As the stamps go on sale a new touring exhibition organised by The British Postal Museum and Archive has also been launched. Brunel Speeding The Mail explores the impact Brunel’s achievements had on the postal service and mass communication.

A full programme of events to commemorate Brunel’s bicentenary can be found on the Brunel 200 website.