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 to take up his previous position at The Engineer in London. Four years later, Colburn was dismissed from The Engineer as a result of personal scandal, taking up engineering consultancy and beginning work on a two-volume textbook on locomotive engineering that would forever define him as a leading engineer. This work, Locomotive Engineering and the mechanism of railways, was not published in its final form until 1871 – a year after his death. It was completed by the well-known locomotive engineer D. K. Clark, a close friend of Colburn's. In 1864 he was awarded a Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers for his paper "On American Iron Bridges" In 1869 he received a second Telford Medal for "On American Locomotives and Rolling Stock". In 1866, Colburn founded Engineering in London as a weekly rival to The Engineer using funds provided by Henry Bessemer, the English engineer and inventor known chiefly in connection with the Bessemer process for the manufacture of steel. Engineering was an instant success and soon overtook The Engineer as Colburn’s writing style and wide engineering knowledge gave readers the information they needed. Personal life Colburn was the nephew of his namesake, Zerah Colburn, a noted arithmetical prodigy. In 1853 Colburn married Adelaide Felecita Driggs, 12 years his senior. They had a daughter, Sarah Pearl. For some reason, he became estranged from his wife whereupon Colburn bigamously married Elizabeth Suzanna Browning from London in New York in September 1860. He went through a second marriage ceremony with Elizabeth, this time in London in 1864 which led to his sacking from The Engineer. Colburn had a career of breakneck speed; he was a restless man, quick of brain and quick of temper; he fell into jobs and fell in with people, but then throughout his life, fell out with them