Letter from Marc Isambard Brunel to Bryan Donkin

This letter was written by French-British engineer Marc Isambard Brunel to Bryan Donkin. It relates to Brunel's agreement to provide a Mr Edward Bury of Liverpool, Timber Merchant, with a licence for erecting and using Brunel's patent improvement on saw mills in Liverpool and the county of Lancaster.

Bryan Donkin (1768-1855) was an engineer and inventor, and in 1803 established engineering works, at first principally for paper-making machinery, in Bermondsey in London. Fourdrinier Bros. were the original financiers of this enterprise. Bryan Donkin continued to refine and improve techniques. In 1819 he invented a revolution counter to record numbers of items produced. To improve security in printing banknotes etc., he developed the Donkin Pantograph Machine and the Rose Engine. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1836, Bryan Donkin died in 1855 but his firm was then managed by one of his sons. In 1902, the firm merged with Clench & Co. Ltd of Chesterfield, and relocated from Bermondsey to Chesterfield in Derbyshire.