I must therefore beg of you to bring the matter before the Board formally, and if it is desired that I should continue to act as your engineer, that I may have it clearly understood that I do so with the full concurrence of the Board as now constituted, and particularly of the new Directors; and that to render the expression of their confidence clear, I wish them to understand that I am quite ready to tender them my resignation if they do not feel that confidence, and that such resignation cannot prejudice any of the cases under arbitration before me, as I undertook them upon the express understanding that it was as agreed umpire, and not as engineer to the Company.
I shall only add that by being engineer to a Company, I mean acting in perfect confidence with the Directors on matters generally, as I have been in the habit of doing.
II.
December 6, 1851.
I really cannot consent to forego in this case the rule I lay down for myself in my professional business, which is to yield as far as I comfortably can to the mere wishes of Directors in the mode in which I direct the works they may order, but not beyond this point—and if the Directors of any body claim the right to control the staff which I think necessary to carry on my work, I concede the right at once, and resign the direction of that staff. The staff for constructing engineering works is not a permanent establishment, which can be extended or restricted just as a Board of Directors may determine; it is much more of the character of a personal staff attached to the engineer-in-chief, and by means of which he is enabled to take great responsibility upon himself, both in respect of the works which he executes, and the settlement of large amounts of payments, in which settlement both the company and the contractors are very much at his mercy. It is the duty of an engineer of course to study economy as well as efficiency in his staff, and to pay attention to the wishes of the Directors so far as he can; but he must be the ultimate judge of the number and the persons of that staff. At least, that is my rule, and I cannot depart from it in this case. I should wish to state this as respectfully as possible to the Board, but at the same time to state it clearly.
III.
January 22, 1857.
...I have replied very fully to the observations of the Directors, but having done so I must again place my resignation in the hands of the Directors. A Board of Directors has a perfect right to dispense with the services of an engineer, or to lay down any rules of conduct they may think fit, and to engineer the works themselves, either as a body or by appointing one of their members, if they think fit; but if they desire to have the advice and responsibility of any respectable engineer—at all events, if they wish to have mine—they must place the usual amount of confidence in me; and as long as I am engineer they must leave me to conduct the engineering, and must act as if they assumed that I was more able to advise the Board upon all the usual practical questions of engineering than any one of the Directors. Admitting as I do the full right of a Board of Directors to determine whether they will have an engineer or not, if they have one they must trust him to do his own work.
As a mere question of time it would be impossible that I could be constantly entering into long explanations of the most trifling character upon points on which I must be by far the most competent judge—and in fact the competent and responsible judge, expressly employed, and paid professionally because I am so. If individual Directors are more competent than their engineer, let them assume the office and the responsibility; but do not have a divided responsibility. I am most happy at all times to receive any hints or suggestions from any body whether Directors or not, but I cannot undertake the labour of replying to them all, neither can I act as engineer to a Board of Directors who, either as a body or by one or two of their members, make a practice of taking upon themselves to judge of those details of which I must be assumed to be the competent judge, and thereby interfering with my proper duties. If the engineer is not assumed to be worthy of trust both in respect of zeal in the interests of the Company, and very superior to any one of the Directors as regards experience, and ability to carry out what the Directors may determine upon, he is not fit to be the engineer; but if he is so, he must be left to carry out those details of his department of the business. These are the general principles upon which alone I can act.
It is, from the nature of the case, impossible by any extracts from Mr. Brunel’s correspondence to give an adequate idea of the position which he occupied in relation to his assistants. There was so much personal intercourse between them that letter writing was but little resorted to.