Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - The construction of the dock . . .

	John Lewis (1825-1865), a distinguished draughtsman from the Dowlais Iron Works was involved with the preliminary surveys and preparation of plans of the dock. John Hawkshaw (1811-1891), later knighted for his work, was the designer of the docks and one of his assistants, a young engineer named Henry Marc Brunel (1842-1903) undertook various duties. The senior civil engineer for the project was Harrison Hayter (1825-1898) and Samuel Dobson (1826-1870) the superintendent of works. Leveson Francis Vernon-Harcourt (1839-1907), a civil engineer, also a pupil of Hawkshaw, was involved in the construction works during 1862.

In October 1863, Henry Marc Brunel continued his apprenticeship as an engineering pupil of Mr. Hawkshaw and recorded in his diary : -

'In June 1864, I was for about three weeks at Cardiff taking copies of drawings of Penarth Docks then in progress . . . . In August 1864, I went to Penarth and remained there till October 1865. During this time Penarth Docks were being completed and the docks were opened in June 1865. I had charge under Mr. Samuel Dobson of important parts of the works and in his absence, superintended on his behalf the working of the Dock for 3 or 4 months.'

Penarth was designed as a tidal dock. The lock gates being opened at high water to top up the dock level thereby avoiding the inconvenient and costly delays caused at other docks by having to lock through the gates i.e. changing levels. The optimum turn-round for ships was to enter on one tide, load up with coal and leave on the next, a target time of about 12 hours.