Sophia Kingdom, Lady Brunel (c1775 - 1854) was the daughter of William Kingdom, a contracting agent for the navy and the army. Sent to France to improve her knowledge of the language, she met Marc Isambard Brunel

Marc Isambard Brunel

Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, FRS FRSE was a French-born engineer who settled in England. He preferred the name Isambard, but is generally known to history as Marc to avoid confusion with his more famous son Isambard Kingdom Brunel...

 (1769-1849) at Rouen

Rouen

Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...

 in the early 1790s. She married him on 1 November 1799. They had two daughters, Sophia and Emma, followed by a son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, FRS , was a British civil engineer who built bridges and dockyards including the construction of the first major British railway, the Great Western Railway; a series of steamships, including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship; and numerous important bridges...

, born on 9 April, 1806. Sophia's sister, Elizabeth Kingdom (1761–1856), married Thomas Mudge, a writer on horology

Horology

Horology is the art or science of measuring time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, clepsydras, timers, time recorders and marine chronometers are all examples of instruments used to measure time.People interested in horology are called horologists...

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Sophia Kingdom was the youngest of sixteen children. When she was eight years old, her father William died (1783).

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
  Dictionary of National Biography
  The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...