Biographies of Civil engineers, etc (second file)

The arrangement is alphabetical (surnames beginning):

Note: there are 45 articles written by Mike Chrimes, Librarian of the Institution of Civil Engineers in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: the majority relate to key civil engineers associated with the railway industry. .

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Adams, Thomas
Born in 1857. Died on 30 September 1919. Civil engineer who worked for the LNWR prior to becoming Chief Assitant to the Engineer of the North Staffordshire Railway from 31 July 1890. He was responsible for the new roof at Stoke station. Fell. Stoke station. Backtrack, 2020, 34, 625

Aime de Bergue, Charles Louis
Born Kensington in 1807 of French parentage; from his earliest years evinced a remarkable talent for mechanics..When quite a boy he invented machinery of an ingenious description for making the reeds of weaving looms, and worked it to great profit. On the restoration of the Bourbons he accompanied his family to Paris; and his father having, in connection with several French noblemen, opened an engineering establishment there, he was able to exercise freely his taste for mechanical engineering. He returned to settle in England in 1834, taking the contract for the gates of the Seraglio at Constantinople. In 1850 he built engineering works at Manchester, and engaged to construct the railway from Barcelona to Tarragona, for which he invented a new iron permanent way, that was afterwards laid down on several other lines in Spain, and was found to make a great reduction in the cost of maintenance, especially in hot climates. He invented a new system of iron permanent way, which has been successfully in use for many years in Spain and elsewhere; also railway buffers, a moulding table, punching, shearing, and riveting machines, with other useful engineers' tools, including a machine for making rivets, of which a description was given at the Institution (see Proceedings Inst. M. E. 1861 page 212). He also invented a useful carriage for laying the same with perfect exactitude. In 1861 he built works at Cardiff, entering extensively into bridge-building. In 1871 he took the contract for the erection of the Tay Bridge, on the plans of the Engineer of the North British Railway. After completing the calculations for that work, which greatly fatigued his brain, he was seized with congestion, softening of the brain supervening, which ended his life on the 10 April, 1873, having lost the power of speech for above twelve months. He was the inventor of many valuable tools, now in use, for shearing, punching, riveting, rail-levelling, and rivet-making. He was also the inventor of a new system of tramway, which has been laid down in Java, Syria, and other places; likewise of a new construction of lattice bridge, uniting lightness with great strength, upon which system the new Wandsworth Bridge has been built.. Graces Guide & Charles McKean Battle for the North

Andrews, George Townsend
1805-1855: architect of North Eastern Railway stations: see review of superb book published by NERA in Backtrack, 2012, 26, 510. Biddle Victorian stations pp. 56-60... Another review by Gordon Biddle in J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2012, 58.

Atkinson, Walter
Builder/engineer of the Harrow & Uxbridge Railway: see London Underground Railway Society booklet reviewed Railway Wld. 1983, 44, 522.

Ayres, Arthur
Born in London on 3 July 1880.. Worked in the Locomotive Departments of the LSWR, then LNWR. In 1853 he went to Canada as Assistant Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Western Railway. In 1885 he returned to Britain and worked as Chief Assistant Engineer at Trinity House. He died at his home in Wood Green on 19 December 1907. Paper: Compressed oil gas and its applications. Min. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs, 188, 93, 298-417. Paper 2318

Bach, Frederick William
Presented ICE Paper 3787 The design of rolling stock for smooth-rail working on heavy gradients. Min Proc. Civ Engrs., 1910, 180, 74-87. From external citations appears to advocate three-cylinder locomotives for Peruvian Central Railway.

Baines, Matthew
Permanent way superintendent on the North Eastern Railway. Resident of Northallerton. Started on York, Berwick & Newcastle Railway in 1853. Grandson of below. Locomotive Mag., 1925, 31, 21.

Bains, Matthew
Contractor with Stockton & Darlington Railway presented with siver cup on 16 February 1838: grandfather of above. Locomotive Mag., 1925, 31, 21.

Baker, John R.
MA(Cantab), FIEE, educated at the Leys School and Cambridge University. Following an apprenticeship with Greenwood & Batley, Leeds, he joined the Hunslet Engine Co for a period as a Service Engineer in New Zealand. Subsequently his career has been in the heavy crane industry in which he began as Works Engineer at Clyde Crane & Engineering Co, becoming General Manager. He transferred to Clyde Crane & Booth Ltd, Leeds, in 1956 and in 1965 was appointed Technical Director. In 1969, Clyde Crane & Booth, together with Wellman Cranes and Sir William Arrol, were merged to form the Crane & Bridge Division of Clarke Chapman-John Thompson Ltd and in 1970 he was appointed Managing Director of the Crane & Bridge Division.Grace's Guide: see also Locomotive Mag., 1947, 53, 137.

Balfour, George
Born in Portsmouth of Scottish parentage in 1872;  on 26 September 1941. Joined the Blackness Foundry in Dundee as an apprentice in 1888. He subsequently qualified as a mechanical and electrical engineer. In 1909, together with Andrew Beatty, an English accountant, he founded Balfour Beatty which was to become an international construction business. Under his leadership the company installed a new tramway system in Dunfermline in Fife. The two partners also founded Power Securities, a business established to pursue opportunities in hydro-electric power, in 1922. From 1918 to 1941, Balfour sat as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hampstead and contributed to many debates on employment issues.

Banks, Sir Edward
Born at Hutton Hang near Richmond, North Yorkshire on 4 January 1770; died at Tilgate, Sussex, on 5 July 1835. He was a civil engineer and pioneer of steam ships. After spending two years at sea, Banks began as a day labourer in 1789; then worked under John Rennie the Elder on the Lancaster Canal and Ulverston Canal and rose to the chief control in his partnership Jolliffe & Banks, contractors for public works. Banks and Jolliffe were responsible for building bridges, dockyards, lighthouses and prisons. Among his undertakings were Staines bridge, the naval works at Sheerness dockyard, and the new channels for the rivers Ouse, Nene, and Witham in Norfolk and Lincolnshire. They were the builders of the Waterloo, Southwark, and London bridges. He owed his fortune principally to these contracts, which he took under the nominal superintendence of the Rennies. Banks was also an investor in the General Steam Navigation Company. In June 1822 Banks was knighted for building the Waterloo and Southwark bridges. Skempton

Barnett, C.H.
Brigadier, Commandant Longmoor Military Railway. Letter: Locomotive Mag., 1955, 61, 12

Bateman, John Frederic (La Trobe)
Born Lower Wyke, near Haliffax on 30 May 1810; died at Moor Park, Farnham on 10 June 1889. Att ended Moravian schools and then became a pupil of William Dunn, an Oldham surveyor. Most of his works in water engineering, including major reservoirs for Manchester and Glasgow. In addition to these activities, Bateman carried out several works abroad. In 1869 he proposed, in a pamphlet entitled Channel Railway, written with Julian John Revy, to construct a submarine railway between France and England in a cast-iron tube. In the same year he went out as representative of the Royal Society, on the invitation of the khedive, to attend the opening of the Suez Canal, and wrote a long report of his visit, which was read to the society on 6 January 1870 and published in the Proceedings. Chrimes in Chrimes

Bazalgette, Joseph William
Born in Enfield on 28 March 1819; died in Wimbledon on 15 March 1891. Mainly associated with the major works involved in improving sewers in London and creating outfalls lower down the river. This included the Thames Embankment which enabled the Metropolitan District Railway to be constructed. Denis Smith in Chrimes

Bell, Horace
Born in London on 17 June 1839. Educated in France and at Louth, Lincolnshire, he began engineering at fifteen, under John Wilson, in Westminster, served as apprentice to Messrs. D. Cook & Company of Glasgow, and spent some time later in the workshops of the Caledonian Railway. After employment on the London, Chatham and Dover railway he entered the Indian public works department as a probationary assistant engineer on 1 July 1862. At first he was employed on the Grand Trunk road in the Central Provinces (1862-70). On 1 April 1866 he became an executive engineer, and in that capacity, after a few months on the Chanda railway survey, served on the Indore (1870), the Punjab Northern (1874), the Rajputana (appointed Superintendent of Way and Works of the metre gauge Rajpooutana line in August, 1875 subject of an ICE paper), and Neemuch (1878) state railways. On the opening of the Punjab Northern in 1883 he was mentioned in the list of officers employed, and was congratulated by the viceroy. Promoted a superintending engineer on 1 January 1880 and a chief engineer, third class, on 22 October. 1890, and first class on 31 Jan. 1892, he was successively (1881-4) chief engineer of the Dacca-Mymensingh railway surveys, and (1884-7) chief engineer to the Tirhoot state railway, of which for a time he was also manager. He received in 1887 the thanks of the government of India for services in connection with the completion of the Gunduck bridge on that railway. His next employment was as engineer-in-chief on the surveys for the Great Western of India and the Mogal-Serai railways. From 8 Aug. 1892 until his retirement in June 1894 he was consulting engineer to the government of India for state railways, acting for a short time as director-general of railways. Bell published Railway Policy in India (1894), which dealt with constructional, financial, and administrative matters. A paper by him, 'Recent Railway Policy in India' (1900), was reprinted from the 'Journal' of the Society of Arts. For Indian students he published at Calcutta a Primer on the Government of India (3rd edit. 1893) and Laws of Wealth (1883); both were adopted in government schools. On leaving India he established himself as a consulting engineer in London, and under his guidance were carried out the Southern Punjab railway (5 feet 6 inches gauge), 1897, and the Nilgiri mountain railway, a rack railway of metre gauge opened in 1899 (ICE paper). He was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers 5 March 1867, and a member 30 January 1892. In 1897 he was elected to the council, on which he served until his death. He died at in London on 10 April 1903, and is buried in Brompton Cemetery. M. Kaye Kerr and Ian J. Kerr in Chrimes..

Bell, Thomas
Began railway career in 1828 as engineer of the Fort Clarence & West Hartlepool Harbour Railway: then district engineeer of NER. Mentioned by Mike Chrimes in Chrimes in entry for another Thomas Bell (pp. 75-6) and states died in 1875. Loco. Rly Carr. Wagon Rev., 1926, 32, 127

Bellhouse family
Operated the Eagle Foundry in Manchester for much of Victorian period. David Bellhouse Jr (1792-1866) and Edward Taylor Bellhouse (1816-1881) were both associated with the Manchester South Junction Railway which was built mainly on viaduct and included many bridges.  Tom Swailes in Chrimes. 

Beloe, Charles Henry
Born in Liverpool on 19 July 1843; died Llandudno 13 August 1902. Educated privately and at the Polytechnic College, Hanover. After serving a few months in Laird's shipbuilding yards at Birkenhead, he was articled in 1860 to R.S. Norris, at that time Engineer of the Northern Division of the London and North Western Railway. On the resignation of Norris in 1862, he was transferred to the head office of the company at Euston, and there completed his pupilage in 1865 under William Baker, the then Engineer-in-Chief. During the following three years he remained with the London and North Western Railway Company as Resident Engineer in charge of several branch lines In 1868 he entered into private practice in Liverpool. When street tramways began to engage serious attention, about the year 1872, Mr. Beloe was called on to advise several councils and companies as to their construction, and subsequently laid many systems in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, and in other towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire. He held Patent GB 3671 of 2 October 1877 (Dow Railway) In the Parliamentary Session of 1874 he was invited by R.S. Norris, his old chief, to assist in the promotion of the Wigan Junction Railway Bill, and shortly after was appointed engineer to the railway Norris had to resign. He carried that line to a satisfactory completion, and in 1884 it was opened for passenger traffic by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway. He was a regular attendant at the Committee Rooms of the Houses of Parliament. Chrimes in BDCE3.

Bengough, Cyril Francis
|Born in Almondbury, Gloucestershire on 31 March 1864; died 22 June 1931 in Gloucestershire. Educated at Marlborough College and studied engineering at University College, Bristol. Became a pupil of Philip Messent whose main activity was being Engineer to  the River Tyne Commissioners, Bengough's career as a railway engineer began on the Annfield Plain and Team Valley branches under C.A. Harrison, a fellow old Marborian. In 1899 he was placed in charge of the Bishops Auckland District and in 1906 was made District Engineer York. In 1912 he was made responsible for the maintenance of all NER lines as well as new construction in the Southern District. From January 1915 he became Chief Engineer of theNER. He retired on 31 December 1924. He died on 22 June 1931 in Gloucestershire. Mike Chrimes

Berkley, George
Born in London on 26 April 1821 (brother of James John below); died from a heart attack on 20 December 1893. He had been knighted in May 1893. Educated privately in Hampstead, then apprenticed to Samuda. Whilst recovering from illness in Bishops Stortford he studied locomotive working on the Eastern Counties Railway. He joined Robert Stephenson in about 1840 and went to Dublin with W.P. Marshall to assist with the extension of the atmospheric railway: this led to his first ICE paper (1845, 4, 251-61) wherein it should be noted that the Berkelrey has an additional "e". Subsequently he was involved with the London & Croydon atmospheric system. He was involved in the gauge conversion of the Eastern Counties Railway and this experience assisted Stephenson during the "battle of the gauges" in 1846.  He was the engineer for Fenchurch Street Station and was the engineer of the Blackwall Railway. He built the Hampstead Junction Railway and was Stephenson's representative to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway. He was also consulting engineer to other Indian railways and to the Natal Railways.  M. Kaye Kerr and Ian J. Kerr in Chrimes.

Berekley, James John
Born in Holloway, London, on 21 October 1819; died Sydenham on 25 August 1862. Engineer on Indian railways. Completed education at King's College, London. Worked under G P Bidder 1836-9 and then began pupilage under Robert Stephenson. Worked on Northarnpton-Peterborough, Trent Valley, Churnet Valley lines and the NSR. In 1850 went to Bombay to become chief resident engineer on the GIPR. He was first concerned in constructing 33 miles of experimental line from Bombay to Gallian. He then engineered the lines up the Bhore Ghat and the Thai Ghat, beginning surveys in 1852. On 16 April 1853 the first 20 miles from Bombay to Thana were opened, the first Indian railway. In 1856 the North Eastern line up the Thai Ghat was sanctioned, to complete the GIP system as projected by Berkeley, totalling 1,237 miles. Berkeley suffered severely from the Indian climate, and in 1861 was forced to return to England, where he died after a lingering illness. Marshall (who spelt the name with an "e" after the k). M. Kaye Kerr and Ian J. Kerr in Chrimes in which name is  spelt boh ways!.

Berridge, Percy Stuart Attwood
Born in 1901 in South Croydon the son of Percy Herbert Berridge, a Stockbroker; died 1980. Engineer in charge of the building of the Khyber Pass Railway Couplings to the Khyber: story of the North Western Railway and later Girder bridge review of latter in Railway Wld, 1969, 30, 274 gives some further information about Berridge: worked for 20 years on the North Western Railway in India and for nearly 18 years with the Great Western Railway (presumably prior to going to India) and Western Region of BR: ICE Railway Paper No. 58 Some notes on the half-through plate-girder railway bridge with Frederick Michael Easton on 10 May 1955. At that time he was Assistant to the Chief Engineer (Bridges) on the Western Region and had an MBE

Bethell, John
^{Patented application of creosote under pressure to timber railway sleepers: GB 7731 Rendering wood, cork, leather, woven and felted fabrics, ropes, stones and plasters or compositions, more durable, less permeable to water, or less inflammable. 11 July 1838 (Woodcroft). In 1861 he patented the iinclusion of steatite into railway greases (Grace's Guide). Andrew Dow Railway p. 57}

Binks, Michael B.
Died 2016. Contributor to Backtrack on permanent way maintenance. Contributed paper to Permanent Way Institution Journal in 1983 Caught in the act of health and safety at work. Backtrack contributions: Railway civil engineering life 50 years ago, 2006, 20, 172-8; Permanent way — an art and a science. 2007, 21, 198-205..How permanent is the permanent way? 2008, 22, 718-25. Level crossings. 2010, 24, 88-95. ,Track renewals of yesteryear. Part 1. 2010, 24, 502-6; Part 2, 562; The unforgettable Cockermouth, Keswick & Penrith Railway. 2011, 25 198-207; London East during War and Peace. 2011, 25, 586-94. Sunderland — from wagonways to South Dock. 2012, 26, 112-21; Surveying and railways. 2012, 26, 548-55; Newhaven – the railway port. 2012, 26, 612-18.; The changing craft of the permanent way man. Part one. 2013, 27, 366-70.The changing craft of the permanent way man. Part Two. 2013, 27, 420.

Blackmore, John
Born in 1801 or 1802; died in Newcastle on 15 March 1844 having scalded himself in a steam bath the week before and was buried in Newcastle General Cemetery. Was chief assistant to Francis Giles in 1828. Possibly carried out surveying work for the extension of the lvel Navigation at Shefford and perhaps surveys for roads and bridges in Bedfordshire. Consultancy work included a report on the design of a new quay wall in Newcastle in 1838, the design of a laminated timber two-span arch bridge over the river Tweed at Norham in 1841, and plans for the. provision of a new supply of water to the town of Newcastle by the Newcastle and Gateshead Union Joint Stock Water Company in 1839. In 1840 he was appointed as engineer to the Maryport and Carlisle Railway. Rennison, R.W.  The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and its engineers; 1829­1862. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203-33. . Wrote text for J.W. Carmichael's Views on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway (now available as an e-book)

Blackwell, Thomas Owens
Born in Devizes on 28 July 1819; died in London on 25 June 1863. Traine under his father and on his death he took his father's place as Engineer of the Kennet and Avon Canal. In 1852 he beacme engineer of Bristol Docks. In 1853 he became engineer of the proposed Bristol and New Passage Railway. In 1857 he became General Manager and Vice President of the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada. Chrimes in Chrimes.

Bland, Fred
Born Rotherham on 16 January 1860; died 1934. Civil Engineer, Tramway Construction, Took charge of manufacture of tramway material (then a new branch). Produced the first tramway points, developing into present tramway special work; Director of Tramway Department of Edgar Allen & Co., Limited, Sheffield. Paper, Thirty Years of Tramway Practice, read in 1913 before the Tramways Association, Blackpool. Revised and read to Permanent Way Inst., York, 1918. and awarded Gold Medal. Papers also written for Tramway Journals.

Blight, Francis J.
Architect to Great Northern Railway: notable for his ironwork. Chairman of Charles Griffin & Co. see Loco. Mag.... 1918, 24, 74

Blundell, Harry
Born 4 July 1857; died at Welford, near Rugby, on  3 January 1942. In February 1873 he became a pupil of John Curphy Forsyth and worked under him on the NSR Potteries Loop Line, He later assisted in preparing plans for the Banbury-Cheltenham Railway and other lines. In April 1875 he entered the engineer's office of the NSR at Stoke on Trent under the chief engineer T.W. Horn and during the next 15 years worked on design and reconstruction of bridges. He went on to work under Horn's successors W.H. Stubbs and G.J. Crosbie-Dawson, In June 1890 he left the NSR and worked under Stubbs on preparing plans for the direct railway from Preston to Blackpool, completed under Alexander Ross. In 1893 he was appointed chief draughtsman on the MSLR at Manchester, first under A. Ross and then C.A. Rowlandson. He designed all civil engineering works for the railway induding extension of Sheffield Victoria station, several branch lines and strengthening Torksey viaduct. In 1897 he was made district engineer of the MSLR which, on 1 August, became the Great Central Railway, and in 1899 he completed 8¼. miles of the Liverpool, St Helens & South Lancashire Railway under Sir Douglas Fox and C.A, Rowlandson. In 1900 he became assistant engineer of the G.C.R until 1902 when he was appointed chief engineer of the CLC. In 1917 he returned to the GCR as chief engineer at Marylebone station, London, in which position he remained until the grouping. He retired from the LNER later that year. Elected assoc MICE in 1886 and MICE in 1899. Marshall..

Blyth, Benjamin Hall
Born Edinburgh on 14 July 1819; died North Berwick 21 August 1866. In 1834 he became a pupil of John Miller of T. Grainger and J Miller, civil engineers. In 1841 he was appointed resident engineerr on the Kilrnarnock branch of the Glasgow & Ayrshire Railway (later G&SWR).  During 1844-6 he rose to become principal assistant in Miller's office, laying out lines from Kilmamock to Carlisle, part of the NBR and the Direct Northern from London to York. In early 1850 he began on his own account, his first work being the Slarnannan-Bo'ness branch of the Monkland Railway. In 1852 he was appointed engineer in chief to the GNSR and in 1854 was joined by his brother Edward Laurence Ireland Blyth as partner. He was connected as adviser and engineer to the CR, GNSR, G&SWR, Monklands, Scottish Central, Perth & Dundee, Portpatrick and other lines. At an early age his health began to decline from overwork. Marshall and Ted Ruddock in Chrimes (portrait)

Blyth, Benjaminn Hall (2)
Born Edinburgh 25 May 1849; died at North Berwick on 13 May 1917. Consultant to North British and Great North of Scotland Railways. Significant works included new bridge over the Clyde at Glasgow Central Station for Caledonian Railway, reconstruction of Waverley station, Kincardine & Dunfermline Railway, and the Mound Tunnels; also dock work at Grangemouth and Methil. Mike Chrimes in BDCE3 also Lothian Lines see Yuill NBRSGJ 2003 (89), 4 and Cattenach and Rodgers for detailed examination of work on Waverley in 1891-1901 NBRSGJ 2017 (131), 19.

Blyth, Edward Laurence Ireland
Younger brother of above. Resident engineer of the Slamannan Railway and of the Great North of Scotland Railway. Mentioned by Ted Ruddock in Chrimes Took over Girvan & contract from John Miller when he became ill see David L. Smith, Locomotive Mag., 1946, 52, 29.

Booth, Joseph
Rodley, nearr Leeds: engineer who in 1847 established company which was one of the first to introduce steam cranes and pioneered the introduction of overhead cranes. In 1888 a three-ton locomotive steam crane was supplied to the Spanish Railways. In 1897 it was incorporated as a limited company. John Baker was managing director in 1947.

Bourne, John
Baptised on 16 June 1811 at Tanfield County Durham. Surveys for Brandling Junction and Newcastle & North Shields Railways. Drew plans for Newcastle High Level Bridge. Prepared plans for Alston branch and branches not built off Newcastle & Carlisle Railway. Resident engineer for the Starbrook to Womald Green section of the Leeds & Thirsk Railway. Became Northern Division Engineer of the North Eastern Railway, but resigned due to ill health on 3 February 1870. Died in Newcastle on 4 August 1874. Rennison, R.W.  The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and its engineers; 1829­1862. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203-33.

Bow, Robert Hendry
May have been born in Alnwick (Ruddock states in 1827; and death in Edinburgh in 1909), but resident much of his life, and died in Edinburgh. Mathematician who contributed to structural engineering. Raplley (NBR Study Gp) states performed calculations for Thomas Bouch's Belah and Deepdale Viaducts, but probably remaned outwith his planned Forth Bridge. Ted Ruddock in Chrimes,

Bowles, C.W.
Former State Engineer of Pataila in the Punjab alive when Railway World article written. Instigator of Ewing mononrail system thereat: see John R. Day. Rly Wld, 1962, 23, 52.

Boys, John
Civil engineer/contractor to North Wales Narrow Gauge Railways: took over from McKie. Railway World, 1983, 44, 298

Surnames beginning "Br"

Bradfield, John Job Crew
Born on 26 December 1867 at Sandgate, Queensland, son of an English labourer and  Crimean War veteran; died at his home at Gordon on 23 September 1943 and was buried in St John's cemetery. Educated at the North Ipswich State School and the Ipswich Grammar School , Bradfield passed the Sydney senior public examination in 1885, gaining the medal for chemistry. Dux of his school, he won a Queensland government university exhibition and in 1886 matriculated at the University of Sydney. From St Andrew's College, he continued his brilliant academic career, graduating B.E. with the University Gold Medal in 1889.
Bradfield then worked as a draughtsman under the chief engineer, railways, in Brisbane. That year he was retrenched and joined the New South Wales Department of Public Works as a temporary draughtsman, becoming permanent in 1895. An associate from 1893 of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, he graduated M.E. with first-class honours and the University Medal in 1896. He had been a founder of the Sydney University Engineering Society in 1895 and was president in 1902-03 and 1919-20.
In February 1912 in evidence to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works Bradfield proposed a suspension bridge to connect Sydney with North Sydney, but in April also submitted a cantilever design. Next year the committee recommended acceptance of his scheme for construction of a cantilever bridge from Dawes Point to Milsons Point. In 1913 his title was changed to chief engineer for metropolitan railway construction. Plans for a city railway were already well developed by his predecessors when, in 1914, Bradfield went overseas to investigate new approaches to metropolitan railway construction; and reported on proposed electric lines for the city of Sydney. Most sections of his scheme were postponed as a general war economy measure.
In October 1913, with J. D. Fitzgerald and Sulman, Bradfield had attended the inaugural meeting of the Town Planning Association of New South Wales; at the first Australian Town Planning Conference and Exhibition held in Adelaide in October 1917, he argued in his paper, 'The transit problems of greater Sydney', that his scheme of suburban electrification would benefit large property owners, new home purchasers and the general public by opening up new land, with quicker transport and cheaper fares. He predicted that Sydney's population would reach at least 2,226,000 by 1950.
In March 1922 he was sent overseas to inquire into tenders for a cantilever bridge. Later that year the Harbour Bridge Act was carried; Bradfield had advised R. T. Ball to amend the bill to provide for either a cantilever or an arch bridge, according to his specifications, as developments in light steel made the latter possible. In 1924 he recommended that the government should accept the tender of Dorman Long & Co. of Middlesbrough, England.
The easy passage of the Harbour Bridge Act undoubtedly increased Bradfield's determination to promote other sections of his scheme. By mid-1923 the public could see results of the Bradfield plan in the massive excavations and tunnel-building in Hyde Park for the underground railway. In 1924 he received the first doctorate of science in engineering awarded by the University of Sydney, for a thesis entitled 'The city and suburban electric railways and the Sydney Harbour Bridge'. One of his examiners, Sir John Monash, wrote: 'these works are undoubtedly of exceptional magnitude, being in some respects unique in Engineering practice'. The opening of the St James and Museum stations and the new section of the Central Station at Chalmers Street on 20 December 1926 marked his plan's first result. In February 1930 he was curtly retired by the railway commissioners; however cabinet preserved his status in the Department of Public Works and £3000 salary, and he continued to represent the government in dealings with the contractors and to supervise construction of the bridge.
During this extended period of public and parliamentary exposure Bradfield's expertise was never questioned. But in 1929 controversy flared over who really designed the bridge, inspired by a series of articles in the Sydney Morning Herald by (Sir) Ralph Freeman (1880-1950), consulting engineer to Dorman Long, who was described by the Herald as 'the designer' of the bridge and who conveyed the same impression in his articles. The highlight of Bradfield's career was the opening of the bridge on 19 March 1932. In 1933 he was appointed C.M.G. and he retired from the public service in July.
In 1934 Bradfield was appointed consulting engineer for the design, fabrication and construction of a bridge and approaches across the Brisbane River from Kangaroo Point to Bowen Terrace. The Story Bridge was a symmetrical cantilever of 1463 ft (446 m) in length, with a clear span of 924 ft (282 m); construction began in 1935 and the bridge was opened in 1940. He was also technical adviser to the constructors of the Hornibrook Highway near Brisbane and helped to plan and design the University of Queensland's new site at St Lucia.
Although in most respects severely pragmatic, Bradfield had a penchant for the grandiose that was revealed in some of his wilder plans for high-rise office blocks astride the southern approaches of the Harbour Bridge and in his proposals for a massive water-diversion scheme in Queensland. In his early seventies he put considerable time and energy into publicizing a plan to irrigate the western districts of Queensland and part of Central Australia by damming certain coastal rivers and running water-pipes through the Great Dividing Range. Aspects of this scheme, and especially his lack of scientific evidence, were publicly attacked by G. W. Leeper of the school of agricultural science at the University of Melbourne.
Bradfield had wide interests within his chosen profession. Early in 1916 he was appointed by the New South Wales government to a committee to establish and manage a school of aviation at Richmond. In 1919 he was a founder of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, and as a councillor in 1920-24 and 1927 represented it on the Australian Commonwealth Standards Association; he was also a member of the Australian National Research Council. He maintained close links with the University of Sydney: he was a member of its senate in 1913-43, a trustee of Wesley College in 1917-43, a councillor of the Women's College from 1931, and from 1942 deputy chancellor. He was a member of the University Club and from 1922 of the Royal Society of New South Wales. Bradfield regularly attended St John's Church of England, Gordon, and was a keen gardener.
Bradfield was small in stature, with a quiet and humorous disposition. His life was one of total professional zeal and commitment, and he became an outstanding Australian engineer . Florence Taylor noted his 'tremendous faith in his ability which is not a conceit when there is an enormous knowledge behind that faith and ability'. He was honoured by the award of the (Sir) Peter Nicol Russell Medal by the Institution of Engineers, Australia, in 1932, the (W. C.) Kernot Memorial Medal by the University of Melbourne in 1933, and the Telford Gold Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, in 1934. His vision of Sydney captured the imagination of many, including J. T. Lang who later wrote: 'Bradfield was probably the first man to plan for Sydney as a city of two million people'. From Peter Spearritt's biography in Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1979.

Bradley, E.S.
District engineer Hull had been appointed district engineer York. Locomotive Mag., 1944, 50, 41.

Brady, Francis
According to Dawn Smith Resident Engineer to the South Eastern Railway from 1870 until 1897 (when it came under joint management with the LCDR). From about this time onwards he seemed to have become involved (several Internet sources) with the Channel Tunnel project and  the development of the Kent Coal Field

Brady, Joseph Msrtin
Born near Enniskillen in Northern Ireland on 18 August 1828; died on 8 July 1908 at Elsternwick, Victoria. His father was a surveyor and two of his brothers were engineeers, notably Francis Brady, engineer to the South Eastern Railway. Joseph served a pupilage under his father, Michael P. Brady who was working on highway construction and Tithe Commutation Surveys in Kent between 1842 and 1844. Joseph then worked for Vignoles on railway surveys in Kent and Lincolnshire, then on the North Western Railway between Skipton and Lancaster. In 1850 he migrated to Sydney and worked under Sheilds for the Sydney Railway. After a brief period working on waterworks, he returned to the Sydney Railway, working as an Assistant Engineer to James Wallace. Brady resigned in 1856 and worked on railway construction over the Razorback Ridge via Camden. A survey of the Great Northern Railway (Australia) followed. He returned to Victoria on 31 December 1857 and was engsaged on waterworks, but between 1 August 1860 and 31 December 1862 he was Engineer & Manager of the railway between Malmsbury and Taradale which included tunnels at Elphinstone and Big Hill. In January 1864 he moved to Queensland where his works were mainly in connection with water supply, rivers and hsrbours. On 7 March 1867 he reported on the failure of the Bremer railway bridge. In April 1869 he returned to Victoria and worked as construction engineer with O'Grady, Leggatt & Noonan on the Melbourne to Seymour railway including the bridge over the Goulburn River. Many of his buildings, including churches, survive.. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes.

Bragge, William
Born in Birmingham on 31 May 1823, the third son of Thomas Perry Bragge, a manufacturing jeweller. At the age of 14 he began his training as an engineer with C.H. Capper, a leading Birmingham engineer who supplied the steam engines for pumping out the groundwater in Kilsby Tunnel, then under construction on the London & Birmingham Railway. This was a severe introduction to civil engineering. Bragge continued his training at the Vulcan works of WilIiam Middleton before, when 21, joining the staff of the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway at Bromsgrove.
Bragge's early training must have largely been concemed with mechanical engineering, but about 1845 he joined Gandell & (John) Brunton, then practising as civil engineers in Birkenhead. He would have known them from me London & Birmingham Railway on which they were sub-assistant engineers.
Around 1850, possibly consequent on the collapse of the railway mania, Bragge went to Brazil, on the recommendation of (Sir) Charles Fox, to supervise the construction of the Rio de Janeiro gas works for Edward Taylor Bellhouse. He was accompanied by his pupil Jarnes Bolland. The works were financed by Irines Evangelista de Souza, Baron Maua, with  William Gilbert Ginty acting as Engineer. Bragge was employed by Maua on another scheme: Imperial Compantina de Navegacao a Vapor e Estradie de Ferro de Petropolis or The Maua Railway, the first railway in Brazil. It obtained its concession in June 1852, ran from a pier at Estrella (Maua) to Raiz de Serra, the foothills of Petropolis. It had few engineering works and the first section, to Fraguso opened in 1854, the second in December 1856. Bragge was rewarded by the Brazilian Emperor with me Order of me Rose.
Bragge moved to Buenos Aires and was involved at the suggestion of Carlos Pellegrine (1800-1875) with the Buenos Aires Western Railway, the first in Argentina, assisted by John Thomas Alan. He possibly erected some piers in the port, and was involved with water supply. He was involved with Bellhouse's in their contract for the Primitivo gasworks, erecting the works there in 1856. More than 2,000 tons of materiel were supplied, inclucling over 6,000 yards of gas mains. Bragge decided to return to England in 1858 and joined John D. Ellis at John Brown's Atlas Works in Sheffield. By now knowledgeable of several languages he did much to boost the company's export business. As managing director with Ellis he helped develop the production of armour plating, steel rails and plate, and helical railway buffer springs. In addition to his manufacturing interests he played a significant civic role, Elected Master Cutler of Sheffield in 1870, he helped set up Weston Park Museum, and its cutlery displays. He was a local councillor, alderman, and chairman of the Public Library Committee. He was involved with me working men's club movement, National Education League, and the School of Art. In 1872 Bragge left Sheffield to act as engineer to the Societe des Anglais, a company intending to utilise the sewage of Paris. The scheme was a financial failure and he returned to his birthplace, Birmingham, much reduced in circumstances. Bragge continued his philanthropic activity in Birmingham. In 1850 he had published his Bibliotheca Nicotiana. He presented the Public Library with his 1,500·volume Cervantes collection, largely destroyed in a fire in 1879. He set up a watch factory, The English Watch Company, which was visited by me lnstitution of Mechanical Engineers in 1883, and where he displayed his innovations in manufacture, By that time he was losing his Sight, and at me time of his death on 6 June 1884 he was almost blind. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes

Bramah, John Joseph
Born 1798; died at Ashwood House, Kingswinford on 13 September 1846), nephew of ironmaster Joseph Bramah. On 1 July 1832, the partnership between J.J. Bramah and his cousins Francis Bramah and Edward Bramah, described as "Engineers, Millwrights, Ironfounders, Smiths, and Plumbers", was dissolved as J.J. Bramah left to run his own business. Bramah, together with George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson, created a substantial railway equipment business in Pimlico, London, starting from his uncle Joseph Bramah's business. The 1815 Beauties of England and Wales described it as "the chief ornament of this neighbourhood", being the "amazingly extensive and interesting manufactory of Mr. Bramah, the engineer, locksmith, and engine-maker", and praising it in terms: "In 1836, Bramah was insured as an "iron founder", of 4 Eccleston Place, Pimlico. In 1839, with Charles Fox (1810–1874), the company became Bramah, Fox and Co at Smethwick, Birmingham.It was known as the London Works. In 1840, Messrs. John Joseph Bramah and others, "engineers", had "the contract for supplying the iron work of the Blackwall Railway". Wikipedia [2015-05-09] and Grace's Guide See also Company

Brand, Charles
Born in Auchinblae in Kincardineshire in 1805; Died in Mains of Fordoun on 8 January 1885. He was a mason who built bridges and houses until 1845 when he turned to railway construction. He built the piers for a bridge to cross the River South Esk near Marykirk to carry the Aberdeen Railway. He then joined Messrs Mitchell, Dean & Co. to construct the Great North of Scotland Railway between Kittybrewster and Keith which opened in stages between 1854 and 1856. Alexander Gibb was in overall control of these works. The Inverness & Aberdeen Junction Railway involved a major bridge over the River Spey. The Keith & Dufftown Railway contract caused a major loss due to the failure of a viaduct over the River Fiddich, but the line onto Craigellachie (the Speyside Railway) and the Findhorn Railway were completed successful. The partnership won the contract to build the Sutherland Railway between Bonar Bridge and Golspie and this involved a major bridge, retaining wall and deep cutting where the railway crosses the Kyle of Sutherland. By this time James Brand (1831-1904) had joined his father to manage the business (from 1853) and Charles Brand retired in 1862. After 1867 the firm became involved with works in Ayrshire including the Cronberry to Annbank line with a viaduct across the River Ayr. The contract to build the Balerno branch was very successful. Tom Day in Chrimes.

Brand, Charles Gordon
Born 17 July 1905; died 28 March 1966. Educated at Stonyhurst and Balliol College. Pupil of Sir William Halcrow where he gained experience in tunnel engineering on the Mersey Tunnel (road). In 1930 he joined Charles Brand & Sons and worked on the tunnels associated with the Galloway Hydroelectricity project, extensions to the London Underground systyem, the first Tyne Tunnel and major power station projects. His ICE obituary notes that he retained a strong religeous faith

Brockedon, Philip North
Only son of William Brockedon F.R.S., (equaily known for his mechanical ingenuity which included patents for rubber bungs and his ability as an artist), was born in Florence on 27 Apri, 1822. His education commenced at the London University aud finished at King’s College, where his proficiency in the classics, mathematics, natural philosophy, the living languages, and especially those branches of study connected with his future profession, gained the highest testimonials from the professors, and he became in less than the usual time an Associate of the College. He began his professional career in 1841, as the pupil of Cubitt then President Institution Civil Engineers), by whom he was placed with Simms and then with Turubull, resident engineers on the South-Eastern Railaay, under whom he assisted in the construction of most of the principal works on the line. He then went to the Bristol and Exeter line, where, with Froude, he set out and completed a large portion of the permanent way. It was here that he replaced felt with rubber under rail chairs. He was then, in 1844 and 1845, engaged on the parliamentary sections of the Wilts and Somerset, and the ‘ North Devon lines, and then became assistant engineer on the East Lancashire Railway, under Cawley. In 1846 he became one of the resident engineers on the Great Northern Railway, under J. Cubitt., where he directed the construction of the portion of the line between Lincoln and Gainsborough. Besides these regular engagements, he was employed on numerous surveys in England, and accompanied Simms, on the general survey of the proposed railways from Bordeaux to Cette. In fact, from the earliest age, he never was unemployed. This constant application, however, preyed on his constitution, and he resolved to visit Spain and the Mediterranean, but he unfortunately decided to to make a previous excursion to Holland and Belgium, where he passed a few weeks, during which time, as testified by his copious notes, and a large collection of sketches, he must have worked early and late, and returned home a greater invalid than he left it. He died of tuberculosis on 18 November 1849. He bequeathed to the Institution of Civil Engineers a very large collection of drawings and sketches, made during lis numerous short tours.

Brockendon, William
Botn in Totnes on 13 October 1787; died 29 August 1854, son of a watchmaker. Inventor and fine art painter. Knew Thomas Hancock (the founder of the British rubber industry): invented term vulcanization for the process of mixing and heating natural rubber with sulphur thus enabling it to become a key engineering material.

Brogden, John
Born at Worstone, near Clitheroe on 7 February 1798 and educated at Cltheroe Grammar School. He had his own farm at Ancoats Hall and provided horses and services to the bororeeves of Manchester before obtaining a contract to construct a viaduct on the Manchester & Leeds Railway. With his sons he obtained more railway construction contracts. 8He was a major shareholder in the South Eastern Railway and became a director in 1848. He died in Sale on 9 December 1869. P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes.

Brown, Harold
Born Cockermouth, Cumbria,  in 1882; died Essequibo, British Guiana on 7 September 1921. Educated Higher Grade School Maryport Entered engineer's office of the Maryport & Carlisle Railway at the end of 1897 as pupil. Later became assistant to Cartmell whom he succeeded as chief engineer in 1915. Obtained external BSc (London) (engg) in 19l3. AlCE 1916.

Bruce, Robert
Glasgow City Engineer in immediate post WW2 period: responsible for a Report which led to the controversial motorway box (coffin?) and would have led to the total destruction of the City Centre and its replacement by uniform concrete boxes. Only major structure attributed to him: a rather tacky concrete footbridge over the  Clyde at Polmadie. No dates. See Skelsey Backtrack, 2016, 30, 580

Brunton, John
Born 1812; died in Leamington on 7 April 1899. Educated by the Revd Walter Scott of Rothwell; attended a couple of sessions at University of London and then became a pupil at Harvey & Co. atv the Hayle Foundry. He rthen worked for George Stephenson and Thomas L. Gooch on the Manchester & Leeds Railway. In 1856 he was appointed Chief Resident Engineer on the Sind Railway in India supervising the construction of the section from Karachi to Kotri. Memoirs published in 1940. M. Kaye Kerr and Ian J. Kerr in Chrimes

Bucknell, Leonard Holcombe
Died 1963. Architect of Uxbridge and East Finchley LPTB stations of the late 1930s. Industrial architecture. London, Studio Ltd.; New York, The Studio Publications [1935

Bulman, John
First locomotive superintendent of Marport & Carlisle Railway. Born in Nortumberland: probably associated with George Stephenson who engineered tye line

Burge, Charles Ormsby
Book: The adventures of a civil engineer: fifty years in five continents. London: Alston Rivers, 1909. Reviewed in Locomotive Mag., 1909, 15, 136. Widely available from £10 upwards off Internet in India. Appears to have been awarded Telford Medal c1890.

Burge, George
1795-1874. Worked for Thomas Telford on the construction of St. Katherine's Dock. In 1830 George Burge and another London businessman, visited Herne Bay and saw an opportunity to build a pier to allow passengers to land and take the waters, something that would be preferable to the existing method of carrying them ashore in beach boats. Burge knew that a similar problem had recently been solved by the building of a landing stage more than a mile long at the growing resort Southend. Burge persuaded Telford to get involved with the project. It is almost certain that the pier was designed by Telford's chief assistant, Thomas Rhodes, who decided to use wood rather than iron. Burge raised funds for the pier's construction. Construction began in 1831 and was completed a year later. Burge began buying land and, with local landowner Sir Henry Oxenden, he became involved in planning the town's development. In 1838 he was contractor on the Bath-Chippenham section of the Great Western Railway. He was briefly involved in contrcting to build the East Kent Railway, but ullrd out and was replaced by Peto; see Clarke. Backtrack, 2018, 32, 554.. Full biography in Skempton; mentioned in Hodgkins George Carr Glyn. Also Grace's Guide

Burleigh, Benjamin
Born Oxford 24 May 1820; died York 25 April 1876. Learned surveying at an early age and about 1840 was engaged by Col. Landmann and John Braithwaite on drawings for bridges and other works on the Eastern Counties Railway. In 1845-9 he was employed on the East Lincolnshire Railway under James Hodges. From 1849 he was resident engineer on the GNR London-Peterborough line under Joseph Cubitt, building many important works. On completion of this project he worked in Westminster and practised as an engineer and took out several patents. In 1862-3 he designed and carried out the Bristol Port Railway from Clifton to Avonmouth (Locomotive Mag., 1925, 31, 354) and, under John Hawkshaw, superintended construction of the East London Railway through Marc Brunel's Thames tunnel. In 1873 he was appointed architect to the NER and was one of the architects of York station, completed in 1877 after his death. Marshall.. .

Butler, John
Born at Bowling on 25 April 1822 was in charge of what had become Stanningley Ironworks which  manufactured structural ironwork, notably for York station, but also many iron railway bridges, first making those for the Leeds & Selby Railway. They later built the cast-iron bridge which carried the East Lancashire Railway over the Ribble at Preston and many other similar spans.. John died at Farsley on 17 October 1884. See Monika Butler in Chrimes. and Marshall..

Butler, Joseph
Born in Stanningley on 25 September 1797. Worked as a greensand moulder probably at Bowling Iron Works. In 1828 he established a brass and iron foundry with his brother-in-law Jonas Haley and this traded as Haley & Co. This supplied the local woollen industries and railways. Joseph Butler died on 24 December 1870 by which time his eldest son, John Butler, born at Bowling on 25 April 1822 was in charge of what had become Stanningley Ironworks which structural ironwork, noatably for York station. See Monika Butler in Chrimes...

Butler, Joseph Jr
Born Stanningley on 27 March 1833. Was responsible for the Goole swing bridge, but spent much of his life in Australia: died Perth (Aus.) 21 August 1906. See Monika Butler in Chrimes..

Surnames beginning "Ca"

Cail, Richard
Born in Gateshead on 11 May 1812. Educated at Bruce's Academy in Newcastle. Apprenticed to Joseph Grey, a Newcastle builder. Admitted to the Guild of Builders in 1832. Early work on Brandling Junction Railway; then Newcastle & Carlisle Railway. Contractor to York, Newcastle & Berwick Railway for which he constructed a substantial warehouse. He constructed the Bishop Auckland branch with its substantial viaducts, but is mainly known for his reservoirs and improvements to navigation in the Tyne. Died 20 October 1893. See Chrimes for biography by R.W. Rennison and Rennison, R.W. Richard Cail (1812-1893): Victorian contractor and man of many parts. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 1998, 70, 161.

Carr, P.A.
Engineer of Burry Port & Gwendraeth Valley Railway 1899-1901 (also responsible for locomotives). RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway Part 10 .

Carruthers, John
Born in Inverness on 26 June 1836; died 2 September 1914 and buried at Tomnahurich near Inverness. Son of Robert Carruthers, proprietor of Inverness Courier and a man of letters. Educated at Inverness Academy where he did well at mathematics. Opted to travel to Canada where he obtained work on the Great Western Railway of Canada. He then worked on the Riga to Dunaberg Railway and then on a railway project in Mauritius. In 1871 he went to New Zealand as Engineer-in-chief of the Public Works Department and remained in it for eight years. On return he established himself as a consulting engineer in London specialising in constructing railways in Venezuela. In his later years he was associated with the Society for Preservation of Ancient Buildings and became a close friend of William Morris. Chrimes in Chrimes.

Carswell, James
Born c.1832 in Bonhill, Dunbartonshire, the son of Thomas Carswell, iron merchant. In 1851 he is described as a 'mining and land engineer' and was living in his parental home in the Gorbals. He began his career as resident of the Monklands Railway, subsequently amalgamated with the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway which was absorbed by the North British Railway in 1865. In 1861 he was living in Derbyshire with his wife Anne and their young son. He succeeded Deas as resident engineer of the western section of the North British Railway in 1869, becoming engineer-in-chief in 1879 on the retirement of James Bell. Queen Street Station, Glasgow remains his masterpiece. He engineered the Forth Bridge approach lines, and was responsible for many buildings on the West Highland Railway. He died in Edinburgh on 20 January 1897 and was buried in Dean Cemetery.

Cartwright, George
Born on 3 November1850; died in  Market Rasen, Lincolnshire on 22 February 1934. Began training as a civil engineer on 1 June1869 under Charles Sacre of the MSLR. After 3 years he became assistant to Mark Hyde on the CLC Manchester-Liverpool line. In 1873 he was appointed resident engineer at the Grimsby docks and during the next five years supervised the const of a fish dock of 11 acres and Alexandra Dock, 26 acres, a graving dock 400ft long, and a port and harbour works. In 1879 he was appointed resident engineer of the Canals Department of the MSLR at Doncaster, responsible for 106 miles of canals, reservoirs and other connected works. He was next appointed resident engineer at Grimsby docks and in 1897, when the company became the Great Central Railway, he continued in the same position until 1912 when he became engineer of Grimsby and Immingham docks. Cartwright retired in 1917 and continued to live at Grimsby until, only a few months before his died, he moved to Market Rasen. Marshall

Cawley, Charles Edward
Born Middleton near Manchester on 7 February 1812. Educated Middleton Grammar School. Assisted father on Hopwood Estates where his father was a colliery owner. In 1837 he was appointed by George Stephenson and T.L. Gooch to supervise the construction of the Manchester & Leeds Railway where it passed through the Hopwood Estates. Appointed Chief Engineer of the Manchester, Bury & Rossendale Railway, later the East Lancashire Railway. In 1849 he returned to private practice and was employed on seeveral railway and water works. He became MP for Salford in 1868. He died in Salford on 3 April 1877. Marshall.

Chan Tien-Yu
Born in Kwangtung Province, China in 1861; died in December.1919 aged 58. First Chinese railway engineer: founder of the Chinese Institute of Engineers. As a child of 12 he was included in a party of 30 Chinese children of humble birth who passed an examination and were sent to the USA. There he was educated at New Haven High School, Conn., and in 1878 went to Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University. He graduated in railway engineering in 1881, and was head of his class in mathematics. During his studies he concluded that it was mechanized mass production which made the capitalist western countries powerful and that it was his duty to do all he could to establish the engineering industry in China. In 1881 the students were ordered back to China. Only one besides Chan Tien-yu obtained a degree. In 1877 the Manchu autocracy had dismantled the 2ft 6in gauge railway from Shanghai to Woosung, China's first railway, because of superstitious fears. In the war with France, in 1884, Chan TIen-yu distinguished himself by his bravery in the Chinese navy. In 1888, after seven years in the navy, he obtained employment on the TIentsin Railway. By 1902, when he was appointed chief engineer on the 29-mile Beijing-Hsiling Railway , he had gained considerable experience. In 1905-09 he was chief engineer on the Beijing- Kalgan (Changchiakou) Railway to the Mongolian frontier. What became known as the Kwankow Climb to the 1,252yd Paderling tunnel under the Great Wall involved reversals. Construction began on 6 October1905 and opened on 24 September 1909, the first to be engineered and built entirely by Chinese. At Chinglungchiao station near the foot of the incline a bronze statue of Chan Tien-yu has been erected. .

Charlton, Francis
Born at Hesleyside, Northumberland on 27 June 1816; died Tyenemouth on 9 April 1881 and buried at St Oswald's Catholic Church in Bellingham. Educated at Ushaw College and apprenticed with Thomas Elliot Harrison. Worked on sections of railway between Darlington and Berwick. In 1851 became engineer of the Alston branch which included the Lambley Viaduct. Engineer of the Marquis of Londonderry's Seaham & Sunderland Railway. Also worked on the Border Counties Railway and on the Marron extension of the Whitehaven Cleator & Egremont Railway. In 1866 he became the County Surveyor of Northumberland. R.W.Rennison and M. Money in Chrimes. Rennison, R.W.  The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and its engineers; 1829­1862. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203-33.

Charlton, Thomas Malcolm
Born 1 September 1923 at South Normanton, Derbyshire, into a mining family, but moved to Stainforth due to his father’s appointment as an underground engine-wright at Hatfield Main Colliery. Won a scholarship to Doncaster Grammar School where he remained until 1939. Railways were the love of his life. He founded the School Railway Society. His tenure of a premium apprenticeship enabled him to study for a Higher National Certificate in Engineering at Doncaster Technical College, but Charlton realised that a university degree was essential, despite the financial sacrifice imposed upon his parents, and became a full-time student at Derby Technical College for the external Inter BSc(Eng) of London University. He completed his studies in 1943 at Nottingham University College, under Professor C.H. Bulleid.  He worked as a Junior Scientific Officer at the Royal Radar Establishment, Great Malvern during WW2 where he was assigned to C.L. Blackburn, a partner of Mertz and McLellan. In 1946 Blackburn offered Charlton a post in his firm’s Newcastle office where he gained experience in power plant engineering and later on hydraulic systems.
In 1954 he became a University Lecturer at Cambridge. His first year was difficult due to teaching duties outside his field of experience, but he was eventually invited to Sidney Sussex College, of which he was duly elected a Fellow. Through Baker, he took control of a departmental research project on steel structures and later became a consultant to the National Coal Board. For Martin Ryle he advised on the reconstruction of his radio telescope structure, after its collapse during a gale in 1957.
In March 1963 he was appointed Professor of Civil Engineering at Queen’s University of Belfast and in 1970  assumed the Jackson Chair of Engineering at the University of Aberdeen where he reached the pinnacle of his academic career. High blood pressure in the latter part of 1973 caused Charlton to have an enforced rest for some months and he retired in 1979 moving to Burwell, near Cambridge. From Royal Society memoir by Joseph McGeough (available online in pdf)
Books
Energy Principles in Applied Statics (1959)
Analysis of Statically Indeterminate Structures (1961)
A History of Theory of Structures in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1982)

Cheffins, Charles Frederick
Born 10 September 1807 in London and died on 22 October 1860. Educated Christ's Hospital. Apprenticed to Messrs Newton & Son, patent agents and mechanical draughtsman. On completion of his pupilage in 1829 he was engaged by John Ericsson to produce drawings of steam engines including the Novelty locomotive. In 1831 he met George Stephenson who employed him to prepare plans for the Grand Junction Railway. Drawing and engraving of Stephenson Patent locomotive see Darby Early railway loconotives page 6 from J. Weale Description of the Patent locomotive steam engine (1838). In 1833/4 he did similar work for Robert Stephenson for the London & Birmingham Railway. On the completion of this line he prepared an Official Map of it.  He diversified into non-railway work and surveys for overseas railway projects. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes.

Church, R.F.
Dawn Smith notes that Church worked for and with William Galbraith  (there was a Galbraith & Church Partnership for a time) including in the later period on the Forth Bridge and the reconstruction of Waverley station in Edinburgh. He was based in Edinburgh and appears to fall outwith the ICE records which are not easy to search

Clark, George Thomas
Born in London on 26 May 1809; died Tal-y-garn, near Llantrisant, Glamorgan on 31 January 1898. Eldest son of George Clark chaplain to the Royal Military Asylum, Chelsea. Educated at Charterhouse. After training as engineer he was entrusted by Brunel with constructing two of the GWR, the main works being Paddington station and bridges at Basildon and Moulsford. During this period he compiled the first offical guide to the GWR, published in 1839 without his name and dedicated to Brunel. In 1846 he published a more detailed account, The History and Description of the GWR, again anonymous, in connection with a series of prints by J.C. Bourne [Ottley 6026]. About 1843 C went to India and reported on prospects for the first railway in India, Bombay to Tannah, later GIPR, and also on the feasibility of extension through the Western Ghats. He was offered the post of chief engineer but preferred to return to England where he exerted himself in the improvement of public health work and sanitation. In 1852 he became trustee of the Dowlais estate and ironworks. He was one of the first iron-masters to assist Henry Bessemer perfect his process for making malleable iron direct from ore. Experiments at Dowlais resulted in the first rails ever to be rolled without the intervention of a puddling furnace. The difficulty of finding adequate British ore of suitable quality led him, in conjunction with the Consett Iron Co and Krupp of Essen, to acquire an extensive tract of iron ore deposits near Bilbao in Spain. He also purchased large coal measures in Glamorganshire. To avoid transport, in 1888-91 he established furnaces and mills by the sea at Cardiff. Under Clark Dowlais became a great training school for engineers and rngrs. On the formation of the British Iron Trade Association in 1876 Clark was elected its first president He was Sheriff of Glamorganshire in 1868. As an archaeologist Clark achieved great renown and was recognized as the leading authority on mediaeval fortifications for half a century. He was also an authority on heraldry and genealogy. He married Ann Price, second daughter of Henry Lewis of Greenmeadow near Cardiff, on 3 April 1850. She died on 6 April 1885 leaving a son, Godfrey Lewis Clark and a daughter. John Marshall Biographical dictionary and Chrimes in Chrimes

Clarke, Fred [Alfred?]
Bristol Traffic Superintendent Great Western Railway (brother of below: thus early) see letter from Peter Rance Backtrack, 2022, 36, 637

Clarke, Seymour
Born in Streatham, Surrey, on 7 July 1814; died Walthamstow, Essex, 15 March 1876. Civil engineer and general manager GNR. About 1834 he began in the office of I.K. Brunel working on designs for Monkwearmouth docks, Clifton and Hungerford bridges and the GWR. On the opening of the GWR between London and Maidenhead on 4 June 1838 Clarke was appointed superintendent of the London division. In October 1837 he was sent to the North of England and to Belgium to study methods of railway working. In 1840 he was placed in charge of the GWR from London to Swindon. He gave evidence on railway gauges in 1846. In May 1850 Clarke was appointed general manager of the GNR which was shortly afterwards, on 7 August 1850, opened from Peterborough to London. Clarke was highly successful in developing traffic. In 1870 he was appointed to a Royal Commission to examine Irish railways. In September 1870, following a severe illness, he had to resign from the GNR. By 1874 his health appeared restored and he accepted office of vice president of the Great Western Railway of Canada. He was also deputy chairman of the Banbury & Cheltenham Railway. John Marshall Biographical dictionary. He was involved as a passenger in the Dog Kennel Bridge derailment in 1845: see Backtrack, 2020, 34, 250.

Clarkson, Charles
Born at Bromsgrove on 30 January 1854; died in Edinburgh on 26 May 1924. Educated privately. He served his apprenticeship from 1869 to 1874 with Bailey Pegg and Co., engineers and founders of Brierley Hil. From 1874 to 1878 employed as draughtsman with the Somerset and Dorset Railway Company, and with Messrs. James Milne and Son, Edinburgh. Prom 1878 to 1880 he was with the Nottingham Malleable Iron Co., Ltd., as engineer and manager, and was subsequently appointed to a similar position with Miller and Co., of the London Road Foundry, Edinburgh. He then became general manager with Francis Morton arid Po., Ltd., of the Hamilton Iron Works, Garston, near Liverpool, and whilst there was responsible for the steel work of the Liverpool Overhead Railway and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. During the war between China and Japan, Mr. Clarkson was manager of the Whitehead Torpedo Works, at Weymouth. He practised privately for a time as consulting engineer, and amongst other work designed and carried out the new works at Birkby, Huddersfield, for J. Hopkinson and Co., Ltd., and a new foundry and works at Leeds for Blaikie and Co. Latterly, and up to the time of his death, he was managing director of David Thomson, Ltd., engineers, Edinburgh.

Surnames beginning "Co"

Coad, Robert
Engineer of Liskeard & Caradon Railway. See Rly Arch., 2014, (24) 2.

Coates, John
Senior partner of John Coates & Co., Ltd., 25, Victoria Street, S.W., had been appointed to carry out the work of the inspection of material purchased for the Commonwealth railway construction and rolling stock in connection with the Australian Trans-Continental Ry. Locomotive Mag., 1913, 19, 28: died in 1914 .

Cochrane, Alexander Brodie
Born on 10 February 1813; died at Stourbridge on 23 June 1863, but firm taken over by his younger brother John (below)

Cochrane, John
Born at Blowers Green near Dudley on 8 February 1823, Became a pupil of John Joseph Bramah at the Smethwick Works of Bramah, Fox & Co.  He was Resident Engineer under Charles Fox for  the Great Exhibition Building of 1851 in Hyde Park and for its re-erction as the Cystal Palace at Sydenham. His expertise in structural ironwork was employed in the Runcorn Railway Bridge and in the approach bridges to Charing Cross and Cannon Street staions in London.

Combe, James
Dawson. Backtrack, 2020, 34, 380

Comrie, Alexander
Born 26 August 1786, in village of Comrie, Perthshire; died Chelsea on 9 January 1855. Worked for Netlam Giles on surveys and induced to go to London by Francis Giles, (M. Inst. C.E.,) with whom he remained for twenty-one years, during the greater part of which, he acted as his principal assistant, and was employed by him on the extensive surveys throughout the United Kingdom, which were made, at that period, for public works. He afterwards commenced business on his own account, and very early obtained the patronage of J. Walker, late President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, by whose firm he was extensively employed up until his death. Grace's Guide.  See also Jeffrey Wells. The first railway to Selby. Backtrack, 2013, 28, 590.

Conybeare. Henry
Born at Brisllington, Near Bristol on 22 February 1823; died in 1884, but uncertain where, but possibly at home in London, or in Venezuela. He served aa pupilage with Hawthorns iin Newcastle and then went out to India in 1844 where he spent two years as Resident Engineeer on the Bombay Railway. In 1851 he became responsible for water supplies to Bombay. He returned to London in 1855 and became involved in the construction of raiilways in Britain including the Aberystwyth & Welsh Coast Railway and the bridge crossing the Mawddach as recounted in Instn. civ. Engrs Paper 1233 . He was aware of Latrobe's work on gradients and curves for railways and in 1859 advocated a similar system for the Alps. In aboout 1863 he waas the Engineer for the combined Brecon & Merthyr and Rhymney Railways and he engineered the conversion of the old Rhymney Railway (a tramroad) into a railway. (P.S.M. Cross Rudkin in Chrimes)

Copperthwaite, H.
Resident Engineer, York, North Eastern Railway. Retired 1899; Dawn Smith also Hoole (Railway Wld, 1961, 22, 94)

Copperthwaite, William Charles
Born on 7 March 1861 in Northumberland (son of Harold Copperthwaite, a Civil Engineer; died in Old Charlton on 29 January 1927. Pupil of his father and when his training finished he worked for the Western Railway of France, and then for T.E. Harrison on the Alnwick & Cornhill Railway and as Resident Engineer at Darlington station. In 1888 he went to Mexico to work for James Livesey on the Interoceanic Railway and from 1889 to 1895 was manager of the Santa Monica Railway. He then returned to Britain and then became a Resident Engineer on the Central London Railway and then on the Greenwich Tunnel. Whern the tunnel was complete he became bridges engineer for the London Council Council at a time when the bridges had to accommodate tramway an motor traffuic. In 1906 he wrote Tunnel shields and the use of compresed air in subaqueous works.

Coulthard, WiIIiam
Born in Stamtordham, Northumberland, in May 1797; died in Holloway, London 19 March 1863. Eldest son of Walter Coulthard, contractor and mason, under whom he began his career. In 1824 he was engaged by John Green as assistant  on the suspension bridge over the Tyne at Scotswood, the stone bridge over the Tees at Blackwell near Darlington, Free Schools at North Shields, and other works. In 1834 he rebuilt the stone bridge over the Esk at Whitby. His son Hiram Craven Coulthard, named after the railway contractor, was  born at Whitby in 1836. Coulthard's railway career began in 1835 as resident engineer under Vignoles on the Northern Union Railway between Preston and Wigan, and he remained with the NUR until 1846. He was also responsible for the branch down to the Ribble at Preston, 1845-6. He then became a railway contractor and was responsible for the following works on the North Western Railway (later MR): Lancaster-Morecambe opened 12 June1848; Skipton-Ingleton, 30 July 1849; Lancaster-Wermington, 17 November 1849; Wermington-Clapham, 1 June 1850;  Morecambe harbour and pier, 1851-2. In conjunction with his son he built the LNWR !ngleton-Low Gill 24 August1861 and Morecambe-Hest Bank 16 October1864. Became MICE June 1849 and always took a lively interest in its progress. John Marshall Biographical dictionary and Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes: latter also includes the son William Robson Coulthard born in Gateshaed on 25 December 1823 and died Adelaide, Australia on 3 January 1866.

Court, H.
Articled to H.H. Fulton, Civil Engineer in 1865. Worked for the enginer's department of the Post Office during the period it was acquiring the telegraph business from private companies. In 1870 he went to Burry Port and acted as assistant engineer to Captain Lucraft RN. In 1871 he was in Bahia in Brazil reporting on mineral deposits. In 1872 he surveyed the propsed extension of the BP&GVR from Cwm Mawr to Llanarthney station on the LNWR. He was resident engineer on the Bradford Corporation sewage works. Made a survey of Newington, a part of Hull, and laid out the drainage for Driffield and in 1878 he assisted in planning the docks built for the Hull & Barnsley Railway. He was involved with the experimental electric lighting of Charing Cross Station in 1881. He then returned to the railway at Burry Port, but also as consulting engineer to the South Wales Explosive Company. He retired in about 1907. Locomotive Mag., 1910, 16, 12

Crofts, Freeman Wills
Born in Dublin in June 1879; died 11 April 1957. Railway engineer and writer of detective stories: Crofts was born in Dublin on 1 June 1879. His father died before he was born and his mother married Jonathan Harding, Church of Ireland vicar of Gilford in County Down (1865–1900). Crofts attended two Belfast schools: the Methodist College (1891–4), then Campbell College. In 1896 he was apprenticed to his uncle, Berkeley Deane Wise, who was then chief engineer of the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. In 1899 Crofts was appointed assistant engineer constructing the Londonderry and Strabane Railway, and in 1900 he became district engineer of the Coleraine, Belfast and Northern Counties Railway. He became chief assistant engineer of his company, now the LMS Northern Counties Committee, in 1923. Befiore  then in 1922 he became Wallace's engineering assistant (Locomotive Mag, 1922, 28, 288). In 1927 he was involved in the design of the Greenisland Loop with its stunning reiforced concrete viaducts, but in 1929 the success of his literary career led to his resignation and move to England.
In 1919 Crofts suffered a severe illness and, encouraged by his doctor, occupied his time writing a book subsequently published as The Cask (1920). Set in Edwardian London and Paris, this detective story soon became a classic of the genre and ‘a milestone in the history of the detective novel’. Encouraged by his agent he continued writing detective stories, producing a book nearly every year for the next three decades. His fifth book, Inspector French's Greatest Case (1925), introduced a portly, dour, but methodical and meticulous Scotland Yard detective who was to feature in most of his later books, plays, and short stories. In 1931 a critic wrote that ‘The alibi was Crofts's first love and the pivot of his plots … [he] exploited to the full his knowledge of the railways and found in Bradshaw a vade mecum’. Julian Symons saw him as of ‘the humdrum school’ but Raymond Chandler admired him as ‘the soundest builder of them all’ (Barnes, 270–71). Crofts's carefully constructed alibis for the murderers (often involving railway timetables) could be demolished only by French's careful attention to detail, and such was his reputation for breaking apparently unbreakable alibis that French was included with Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot in Agatha Christie's parody of ‘the great detectives’, Partners in Crime (1929). The strain of producing an annual novel while following his engineering profession affected Crofts's health, so he resigned his railway career in 1929 and moved to the quiet village of Blackheath, near Guildford, in Surrey, to write full time.
1930 saw the publication of Sir John Magill's Last Journey, set in Ulster as was the dénouement of his ingenious Fatal Venture (1939). Following his move to Surrey, Crofts generally used locations in the home counties, visiting local scenes with notebook and camera to aid authenticity—the victim of The Hog's Back Mystery (1933) was buried in the cutting of the new main road through that feature just outside Guildford. Several other novels were set near his Blackheath cottage.
Crofts continued his annual Inspector French books through the Second World War, his villains often now working for the enemy cause or the settings being wartime England. Most of his books were also published in the United States, occasionally with their titles slightly modified for the American market. Translations appeared in ten languages, including two, The Cask and Sir John Magill's Last Journey, into Gaelic and Death of a Train into Esperanto. His short stories in Murderers Make Mistakes (1947) were the twenty-three plays that had originally been broadcast in 1943–5 by the BBC Home Service in 30 minute episodes as Chief Inspector French's Cases while Many a Slip (1955) contained fuller versions of the twenty-one Inspector French stories that had appeared in the Evening Standard.
In 1953 Crofts and his wife moved to the Sussex coast at Worthing. His final book, Anything to Declare?, featuring the now Chief Superintendent French, appeared in 1957. Crofts died in Worthing on 11 April 1957. ODNB entry by Robin Woolven. See also letter from Peter Butler in Backtrack, 2011, 25, 573. Chrimes in BDCE3.

Crosbie-Dawson,. George James
Born in Liverpool on 30 April 1841:  died Newcastle-under-lyme 14 June 1914. Civil engineer, Pupil of Robison Wright of Westminster. Joined the engineering staff of the LNWR, serving 21 years until 1883 when he became chief assistant engineer of the LYR. In 1886 he was appointed chief engineer of NSR where he remained until his death. He relaid nearly all the permanent way and carried out coosiderable improvements and extensions. Marshall. Portrait: Rly Mag., 1899, 4, 97. Chrimes in BDCE3 who spells his name with hyphen (Fell omits hyphen). Photograph of him at opening of Planet lock on Caldon branch of Trent & Mersey Canal in 1909 in Backtrack, 2023, 37, 390.

Culmann, Carl
Born Bergzabern, Rheinpfalz on 10 July 1821; died Zurich 9 December 1881. After completing his studies in Karlsruhe he worked on railway construction in mountainous country and later (1848) was transferred to the office of the Royal Railways Commission in Munich. In the summer of 1849 the Railways Commission sent him on a two-year study tour of the British Isles and the USA: the tour coincided with the completion of the wrought iron Britannia (tubular) Bridge by Robert Stephenson and with the end of a phase of intensive development of wooden bridge construction in the USA. The substance of Culmann's report of the tour was published in Allgemeine Bauzeitung in 1851 under the title "A description of the latest advances in bridge, railway and river-boat construction in England and the United States of North America". It aroused great interest and established Culmann's reputation as a young engineer with outstanding qualities of perception and seems to have been a factor in his leaving the railway industry in 1855 to teach at the newly established Federal Polytechnic Institute at Zurich, where he believed he would have greater opportunities for combining theory and practice of engineering. Culmann clearly recognised the urgent need to develop Navier's methods for application to the design of railway bridges and his report emphasised methods of calculating the forces in the new bridge forms to enable them to be exploited with confidence in their safety.
Culmann was not alone in recognising the need for precise theory or in attempting to revolutionise the teaching of construction statics of his time for, in the same year (1851) that his report was published, Schwedler published a report on his own investigation, with essentially the same conclusion. If, later, Culmann's work is to be regarded as more signifies this is to be attributed more to the great regard in which his later achievements were held than to any superiority of his findings over those of Schwedler.
Timoshenko (1950) has shown that, before Schwedler and Culmann, structures had been accurately analysed by Jourawski, in Russia, and even before him by Whipple, in the USA, who had published a book entitled An essay on bridge-building (1847), which contained such structural analysis. It is astonishing that Culmann – to judge from his report – did not know of this book. Perhaps he paid little heed to earlier analysis (after the fashion for failure to mention earlier work) because he felt himself capable of carrying out the investigations alone and independently. The almost simultaneous development of a theory of structures by four different engineers, whose individual independence is scarcely to be doubted, probably had its origin, not only in a strong demand from the world of engineering of that time, but also in the existence of those elements of the theory, which invited development.
But Culmann was unique in his insight into the power of graphical techniques of analysis. French engineers, like Poncelet and Cousinery, had indeed already sought graphical solutions, but they were merely either substituting drawn constructions for certain computational steps, or were translating former methods into the language of drawing.
Culmann's goal was more revolutionary: he sought to derive geometrically, the relationships occurring in the theory of structures. His employment of the newer geometry, the 'geometry of situation', afforded him insight into important structural relationships and led him, by clearly arranged and vivid ways, into the graphical language of the engineer. Of even greater significance than its practical application, graphical statics appears to have influenced the development of structural analysis generally. In 1875 Culmann had, in a second edition of his book (1866), published (in a much extended form) the general foundations of his teachings; he was not to be allowed, however, to complete his intended second volume which was to include applications. His pupil and successor, at Zurich, Wilhelm Ritter, continued the work instead (1888-1907).
In the foreword to his second edition, Culmann is enthusiastic about the advances in graphical statics since the appearance of the first edition, for he is quoted by Stussi (1951) as saying with regard to the reception of his theories. One of the most noteworthy engineering achievements of the Culmann school was the Eiffel Tower. Appendix II of Charlton's History of the theory of structures.

Cunningham, George Miller
Born 1829. Died 1897, Apprenticed to John Miller. Partnerships formed with George C. Bruce in Edinburgh and in 1866 formed Blyth & Cunningham. Many railway contracts: Citadel station in Carlisle, for the Great North of Scotland Railway, the Callender & Oban, Clelland & Midcalder and the Balerno branch. Belford Bridge in Edinburgh was a prestigeous contract. See Ted Ruddock in Chrimes.

Curbishley, Harry
Born in 1864; died 1931. Canal engineer of NSR. Photograph of him at opening of Planet lock on Caldon branch of Trent & Mersey Canal in 1909 in Backtrack, 2023, 37, 390.

Curr, John
Born in County Durham in about 1756; died in Belle Vue, Sheffield on 27 January 1823. Catholic with one son ordained priest. Manager of Duke of Norfolk's collieries in Sheffield. Several patents listed in Woodcroft (mainly relate to rope manufacture and use). The coal viewer and the engine builder's practical companion. Sheffield. 1797 (Ottley 172) is important for being one of the earliest to describe the construction of plateways and corves (wagons)

Surnames beginning "D"

Dawson, W.
Chief Permanent Way Engineer, LNWR: part of LNWR party which attended Internation Raileway Comference in America in 1905 (Dawn Smith). KPJ: it is odd that nothing can be traced on him in viiew of the pride which the Company took in its track. May have contributed to ICE discussions on rail corrugation due to electric trains and rail creep membe rs of the monastic order of civil engineers could confirm (nice liturgical expression)

Dean, Arthur
Born 2 May 1903 in Halifax; died 14 August 1968. Educated  Halifax; City and Guilds Engineering College and University of London. Joined Southern Railway: as Civil Engineering Assistant in 1925; a Divisional Engineer from 1939; Assistant Chief Civil Engineer in 1946; and under British Railways: Chief Civil Engineer, North Eastern Region from 1951; modified Morris track-layer for use on Region (Tatlow Backtrack, 2019, 33, 70) General Manager of that Region, 1962–66 and Chairman., Regional Board 1963–66. He had been District Civil Engineer in the London East Division of the Southern Raiulway during the difficult WW2 period (Michael B. Binks. London East during war and peace. Backtrack, 2011, 25, 586-94.

De Bergue, Charles
Born (1807) and died in Kensington (on 10 April 1873. Marshall described him as a bridge builder. Showed interest in engineering as a boy, and invented machinery for making reeds for looms. On the restoration of the French Monarchy his family moved to Paris where his father opened an engineering works. He returned to England in 1836 and invented several machine tools. Established engineering works in Manchester and Cardiff, building bridges, his designs aiming at combining strength with lightness. He invented a new system of iron permanent way, used in Spain, also railway buffers, a moulding table, and various machine tools including a machine for making rivets. Pre-1852 patents listed in Woodcroft include one on atmospheric railways:
GB 9052/1841. Axletrees and axletree-boxes. 21 August 1841.
GB 11184/1846. Atmospheric-railways. 24 April 1846.
GB 11649/1847. Wheeled-carriages. 8 April 1847.
GB 11815/1847. Buffing and traction apparatus; railway and other carriages. 26 July 1847.
GB 12013/1848. Carriages used on railways. 5 January 1848
GB 12286/1848. Bridges, girders, and beams. 12 October 1848.
GB 12435/1849. Steam-engines; pumps; springs for railway and other purposes. 23 January 1849.
GB 13043/1850. Locomotive and other steam-engines; buffers for railway purposes. 15 April 1850.
GB 13493/1851. The permanent way of railways, and construction of the same. 7 February 1851.

De Beuret, Eugene
Patent listed in Woodcroft:
GB 7766/1838. Contruction of railroads and tramroads, the ascent and descent of hills and inclined planes. 10 August 1838.

Dempsey, William
Born in London on 3 May 1817. After private education attended classes at the London Mechanics' Institute (now Birkbeck College). About 1833 William began training as a civil engineer with his brother and then in 1840 obtained a position as a draughtsman with Fox, Henderson, remaining there until 1845 when he and his brother (George Drysdale) , taking advantage of the railway mania, acted as engineers for a number of prospective lines. Unfortunately, these proved 'bubbles' and William found employment with Brarnah, Cochrane & Deeley at their engineering works at Tipton. In 1849 he worked for Robert Stephenson on the Britannia Bridge. He then rejoined Fox, Henderson to assist in the Great Exhibition Building and then Crystal Palace at Sydenham. About 1853 William Dempsey set up as a consulting engineer, principally occupied in designing engineering structures, estimating quantities, etc. He was UK consultant to the South Australian Government from 1857, designing a number of iron bridges and structures for the railways and sourcing the material in the UK. The most important structure he advised on was probably the road bridge over the Murray. The State Engineer, William Hanson, wrote to Dernpsey in 1865 asking for designs and estimates. Dempsey provided six alternatives including suspension and a Warren truss design of five 120 ft spans on cast-iron columnar piers. This was supplied by Kennard's Crumlin Ironworks in 1868. Construction was delayed until 1873 and in 1874 Dempsey supplied a design for a columnar iron approach viadua over marsh land. The bridge was completed in 1879, and rail tracks added in 1884. Dempsey also acted as consultant to the Scottish Australian Mining Co. from 1863, and to the Queensland Government. William was elected AICE in March 1866 and MInstCE in March 1870. 'The predominant features of his character were great capacity for work and inflexible uprightness ... his natural modesty perhaps made him appear diffident and retiring' (ICE Memoir). He died at Kenilworth on 18 October 1893, having retired some time before. His son Charles William was also a civil engineer. Chrimes in Chrimes.

Dickson, Hubert
Structral engineer. Paper: Briges of the Manchestere Ship Canal — past, present and future. Structural Engineer, 1994, 72, Cited by Wells in Backtrack, 2022, 36, 730.

Dickson, John
Born in Berwick-on-Tweed in about 1819; died 13 June 1892, buried Wellington (Salop). Wikipedia (2011-10-13). Contractor in Ireland, Wales and North of England: involved in constructing Neath & Brecon Railway fom 1863, and when it opened from 1865 in supplying it with motive power. Later he was contractor to the Mersey Pneumatic Railway which failed to encourage sufficient finance. His problems on the difficult Whitby, Redcar & Middlesbrough Union Railway are detailed by Williams in J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2014 (219) 32 (includes portrait). He also formed the Swansea & Mumbles Railway in 1879. Dawn Smith and RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10
Woodcroft lists two patents which were probably his:
GB7988/1839 Rotating steam engine. 6 March 1839
GB 9398/1842 Rotatory engines and boilers; stopping railway carriages; machinery for propelling vessels; - partly applicable to propelling air and gas. 21 June 1842.

Dobson, John
Born on 9 December 1787 at Chirton near North Shields in Northumberland. Died in his home at 15 New Bridge Street, Newcastle on 8 January 1865. Plaque in main entrance to Newcastle Central station (his masterpiece) see Humm J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc.,, 2015, 38, 252... ODNB entry by T.E. Faulkner. Excellent concise biography by Gordon Biddle in Oxford Companion, usual thorough biography by R.W. Rennison in Chrimes. Highly pertinent, if somewhat rambling, comment by Christian Barman:.

Dobson, who inspired but did not design the Newcastle portico as we now see it, had absorbed the grand tradition in the office of Sir Robert Smirke, but Vanbrugh was another powerful influence. Within two years of his return to Newcastle he was engaged on the restoration of Seaton Delaval for Sir Jacob Astley after the great fire; it was one of his first commissions. By a rare coincidence, one of his last was concerned with the same building; a later owner, Lord Hastings, called him into consultation when more work had to be done after a second fire. Newcastle Central station is his acknowledged masterpiece; the circumstances in which this building came to be finished by another hand makes it also a memorial of one of the great personal tragedies in our architectural history. Dobson, when he was working out the de- sign for the York, Newcastle &Berwick and the Newcastle & Carlisle railways, foresaw inevitable developments and combina- tions in railway operation and planned his station accordingly. The directors made him reduce the size of his building. The walls were halfway up when they decided to transfer their head office from York to Newcastle; enlargements had to be hurriedly improvised and the great portico had to be omitted. It was added many years later, during Dobson's last, fatal illness, by Thomas Prosser, the architect of Leeds (1869) and York ( 1877) stations The design is manifestly inferior to Dobson's own; no wonder an obituary notice speaks of his 'grief and disappointment' as he lay dying. The place of Newcastle Central in English railway architecture is great and assured; with Dobsori's own portico it would have stood in the front rank with the best of all our public buildings. .

Elliott-Cooper Sir Robert
Born Leeds 26 January 1845; died Knapwood, Surrey, 16 February 1942. Educated Leeds Grammar School, Pupil of John Fraser, serving as resident engineer on railways in Yorkshire, 1864-74. In 1874 he went to India to inspect engineering works. Returned in  May 1875 and in June 1876 he began in private practice in Westminster. During his long career he was responsible for design and construction of many railway works in many parts of the world. He was consulting engineer for Regents Canal & Dock Co, and in 1901-6 for railways in Nigeria and Gold Coast colonies. In 1919 awarded the KCB for war services. 1911-28 he was chairman of the commission of the Engineering Standards Association on steel bridges. 1912 appointed member of the advisory board of the Science Museum, London. 1914 member of India Office Committee for appointments in Public Works Department and state railways. John Marshall , but not mentioned by him Elliot-Carter was the engineer of the outrageous Lancashire Derbyshire & East Coast Railway which was only patially completed: the central section under the Pennines would have demanded huge works: see Cupit and Taylor and Neil Burgess, Backtrack, 2012, 26, 283..

Everard, John Breedon
Civil engineer born at Groby on 22 September 1844 and died in Leicester on 12 September 1923. Worked as an architect and as resident engineer on Kentish Town to St. Pancras section of Midland Railway and on works in St. Pancras station. Later he worked on developing Breedon Hill Quarries; work which included building churches and schools for its workers, and on water supply to Leicester. Wikipedia 20-12-2019,

Ewing, Charles
Inventor of monorail system exploited in Patiala in the Punjab. Internet search (14-07-2013) shows that a US Patent of 1895 exists and that relics and replicas exist in India GB 3679/1894 see Garner — a key source for this system. C.W. Bowles instigated to Pataila application: see John R. Day. Rly Wld, 1962, 23, 52. . Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Surnames beginning letter "F"

Fadelle, Alfred Freeman
Born 6 September 1906; died 19 August 1998. Worked on Metropolitan Railway in the late 1920s and became Assistant Permanent Way Engineer (Backtrack, 2018, 32, 509)

Falshaw, James
Born in Leeds on 21 March 1810; died Edinburgh 14 June 1889. Civil engineer and contractor. In 1824 articled for seven years to Joseph Cusworth, architect and surveyor at Leeds. 1831 engaged by Hamar & Pratt, contractors on the Leeds & Selby Railway, and was later employed by them on const of the Whitby & Pickering Railway, completed in 1836. He then became principal assistant to George Leather of Leeds, engineer of the Aire & Calder Navigatiion, Goole docks, etc, mostly on water works. In spring 1843 he began business on his own account in Leeds, At this time John Stephenson, of Stephenson, Mackenzie & Brassey, engaged Falshaw to take charge of constructing the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway and in June 1844 moved to Kendal. In  July 1845 he moved again, to Stirling, to take charge of const of the Scottish Central and Scottish Midland Junction Railways, including the 1200yd Moncrieff tunnel. These lines opened in stages in 1848. In 1853 he undertook with Brassey the contract for the Inverness & Nairn Railway, opened in November 1855, and later extended to Elgin, opened throughout in March 1858. He carried out the Denny branch of the Scottish Central, and the Portpatrick, Stranraer & Glenluce Railway. He took up residence in Edinburgh and in October 1861 was appointed a director of the Scottish Central Railway. In 1862, in partnership with Morkill & Prodharn, former assistants, he contracted for the construction of the Berwickshire Railway and in 1864 for the Blaydon & Consett branch of the NER including three major stone viaducts. Completion of this in  December 1867 closed his career as a railway contractor. In 1876 when Queen Victoria visited Edinburgh he was created a baronet. He was deputy chairman of the NBR in 1881 (becoming involved in the construction of the Forth Bridge), and chairman in 1882-7. Cattenach North British Rly Study Gp/. (105),11.  McKean Battle for the North. He was a director of the North British Rubber Company and Lord Provost of Edinburgh in 1874 (the first Englishman to attain such a position). He was created a baronet when Queen Victoria unveiled a statue of Prince Albert in Edinburgh. John Marshall and P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes: latter with portrait.

Fitzmaurice, Maurice
Born on 11 May 1861 at Clogher, near Tralee, in Co. Kerry. He was educated at Armagh Royal Academy and in 1878 entered Trinity College, Dublin, to read civil engineering under Samuel Downing. He graduated BA and BAI (bachelor of engineering) with honours in 1882 and MAI (master of engineering) in 1903. From 1883 to 1885 Fitzmaurice was articled to Benjamin Baker, and on the termination of his articles was employed, until 1888, by Baker and Sir John Fowler on the construction of the south main pier of the Forth railway bridge and the approach railways on each side of the Firth of Forth. From 1888 until 1891 Fitzmaurice supervised the construction of the Chignecto Ship Railway (for which Baker and Fowler were consulting engineers) on the peninsula between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. After returning to England he designed steel replacements for several cast-iron bridges on the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. In 1892 he left Baker's practice to join the London County Council under its chief engineer Alexander Richardson Binnie. He was appointed joint resident engineer with David Hay on the construction of the Blackwall Tunnel, the works being described in a paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers, for which the authors received a Watt medal and a Telford premium. In 1895 he published a book entitled Plate-Girder Railway Bridges. In 1898 Fitzmaurice was appointed chief resident engineer to the Egyptian government on the construction of the Aswan Dam. On Binnie's retirement in 1901 Fitzmaurice, then aged forty, succeeded him as chief engineer to the London County Council. During the next eleven years he completed many works begun by his predecessor, among the most important of which was the improvement of London's main drainage, involving 87 miles of additional sewers. He also carried out the engineering works connected with the Kingsway and Aldwych improvement scheme, including the tramway tunnel from the Embankment to Holborn. The electrification of London's tramways involving the conversion of over 250 miles of single track was completed under his direction. He supervised the erection of Vauxhall Bridge and the construction of the Rotherhithe Tunnel, opened in 1908. Other important works completed during his time as chief engineer were the Woolwich pedestrian tunnel, the extension of the Thames Embankment to the west of the houses of parliament, and the embankment on the south side of the river at the site for County Hall.. Following his retirement from office in 1912 he received a knighthood during the laying of the foundation stone of County Hall. Fitzmaurice then became a partner in the consulting engineering firm of Coode, Son, and Matthews, afterwards Coode, Fitzmaurice, Wilson and Mitchell, in Westminster. He died in London on 17 November 1924, ODNB entry by E.I. Carlyle, revised by R.C. Cox (with portrait); also Marshall. During WW1 he chaired the Canal Control Committee of the Board of Trade (Mullay: Rly Archive, 2011 (31) 15).

Fletcher, Lavington Evans
Born Henley on Thames on 9 June 1822; died 14 June 1897. In 1839 he was articled to Barrett, Exall, and Andrewes, Katesgrove Iron Works, Reading, with whom he remained nearly two years after his pupilage. While there he had charge of erecting the first engine, boiler, and biscuit machinery for Huntley and Palmer's biscuit manufactory; and also superintended the erection of an engine, boilers, and pumps, for draining one of the shafts, 200 feet deep, of the Box tunnel in course of construction for the Great Western Railway. At this time economy of fuel in steam engines and boilers began to engage his attention, in connection with the repairs and adjustment of engines for various paper mills, among which were those of Mr. Spicer at Beaconsfield and Mr. Poulton at Alton. At Reading he designed and constructed in 1842-3 a steam road carriage; but its had to be given up, because many horses took fright at it. Early in 1843 he went to Nassau in Germany for a short time. During the railway mania in 1845-6 he did a good deal of surveying for lines then proposed. In the five years 1846-50 he was engaged under I.K. Brunel as an assistant engineer upon the South Wales Railway at Swansea. Besides several bridges and tunnel fronts he designed the mechanical arrangements of the iron swing-bridges at Carmarthen and at Loughor. He also worked out the details and superintended the erection of the Landore viaduct, designed by Brunel, a compound structure of wood and iron trussing, a third of a mile long, and at that time one of the largest in Britain; it occupied about two years in construction, and in 1850 he descrbed it at the Institution of Civil Engineers (Proceedings 1855, vol. xiv, page 492). On the completion of the South Wales Railway he became partner in London in 1851 with John Frederick Spencer, who had been his fellow pupil at Reading, and had acted as steersman of the steam road carriage in its runs thence. As consulting engineers they designed several iron screw steamers, and prepared plans for the engines and boilers, with a special view to economy of fuel. On the dissolution of the partnership in 1855 he had charge of the drawing office of Gwynne and Co., Essex Street, Strand; and was afterwards engaged under Latimer Clark in designing and erecting an engine for exhausting the air from the pneumatic despatch tubes laid under some of the London streets. In 1861 he was appointed chief engineer, under the then title of chief inspector, to the association for the prevention of steam boiler explosions and for effecting economy in the raising and use of steam, which bad been established in Manchester in 1854 under the chairmanship of William Fairbairn, and was afterwards known as the Manchester Steam Users' Association. In 1867 he conducted experiments to ascertain the result of injecting cold water into some circulating domestic boilers when red-hot, and found that no explosion ensued. With Dr. Richardson of Newcastle-on-Tyne he performed in 1868 a series of trials, known as the Wigan Coal Trials, for the South Lancashire and Cheshire Coal Association, to ascertain the evaporative efficiency of the coals of those districts, and of showing their suitability for use in the navy. In 1874-76 he subjected to a series of hydraulic bursting tests a Lancashire boiler made from his designs, to ascertain the strength of various riveted joints and the value of different methods of strengthening the plate round manholes, as well as the valise of cast-iron branches for fittings. In 1876 he contributed a paper to this Institution upon the Lancashire boiler, its construction, equipment, and setting (Proceedings, page 59). In the same year he acted as scientific assessor in investigating the fatal boiler explosion which occurred on board H.M.S. Thunderer on 14 July 1876. In 1881 he was concerned with the parliamentary enactment obtained by Hugh Mason, then president of the Manchester Steam Users' Association, providing for an enquiry and report by the Board of Trade upon every boiler explosion on land. In 1882 he carried out at Preston a further series of experiments, known as the red-hot furnace-crown experiments, upon turning cold water into a red-hot Lancashire boiler; these were far more elaborate than the earlier in 1867, and with the same result that no explosion occurred. He became a Member of this Institution in 1867, and was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Manchester Association of Engineers

Foot, George
Born in County Wicklow on12 June 1833. received his scientific training at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in Arts and obtained the diploma in Engineering in 1855. After serving for several years under W.R. Le Fanu on the construction of branches of the Great Southern and Western Railway of Ireland, he went to London and was appointed by Charles Blacker Vignoles, an assistant engineer on the construction of the Tudela and Bilbao Railway in Spain. Leaving Spain in 1864, he went to Mexico in the following year as Resident Engineer on the construction of the Mexican Railway, becoming subsequently Chief Resident Engineer, and, in 1872, Engineer-in-Chief of the line. He also held the appointment of Consulting Engineer, during construction, of the Mexican Central Railway between Mexico City and Leon. He died in Mexico City on 14 January 1906.. Foot was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on the 7 December 1880. Graces Guide and Chrimes in Chrimes

Footner, Harry Erleigh
Born in Crewe on 25 Maarch 1877; killed in France on 1 August 1916. Pupil of Louis Trench. Chief Engineer for permanent way for the London and North Western Railway 1877-1916. Gridiron sidings Edge Hill? Contributed two ICE papers: The wear of steel rails (Min. Proc. Instn Civil Engrs., 1886, 84, 436-8 Paper No. 2172) The most expeditious method of relaying the railways of this country involving the least interuption of traffic, having regard to safety and economy. Second Metropolitan Engineering Conference, 9 June 1899 (Min. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs, 1899, 138, 380-2). Dow's The railway: British track since 1804 includes Appendix A on rail breakages reported to the Institution of Civil Engineers on 17 January 1899. Awarded Silver Medal at Paris Exhibition. Locomotive Mag., 1900, 5, 145 

Forde, Arthur William
Born in Maghull on 12 January 1821. In 1836 he became a pupil of John Godwin, engineer and General Manager of the Ulster Railway and worked for William Dargan on extensions to the Ulster Railway and on the Belfast & County Down Railway. In 1849 he became Engineer to the Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway and completed it to Derry. In 1855 he became Chief Engineer of the Bombay Baroda & Central India Railway. He then promoted narrow gauge railways in India and established a practice in Bombay. He died in Bombay on 25 October 1886 (Dictionary of Irish Architects) . Chrimes in Chrimes.

Forsyth, John Curphey
Born at Picton Castle Pembrokeshire 14 July 1815; died Newcastle-under-Lyme 15 February 1879. Engineer and manager North Staffordshire Railway. His father went to work on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, but was killed in 1844. Forsyth was educated under the supervision of John Dixon and in 1834 became sub resident engineer on the Newton-Manchester section of the LMR. In 1837, under T L Gooch, he prepared contract drawings for the Manchester & Leeds Railway. Later became resident engineer on constructon of 7-8 miles of the MLR near Huddersfield until the line opened in 1841: in 1841-3 he was resident engineer under Gooch in Manchester on the extension of Victoria station and then on the LMR extension into Victoria. Forsyth then worked on plans for several branches of the Manchester & Leeds Railway. In  January1845 he became assistant to Gooch in London and prepared plans for the Trent Valley Railway; Leeds & Bradford Railway extension to Colne; Blackburn, Burnley, Accrington & CoIne Extension (ELR); and the abortive Southport-Euxton (Chorley) project. In autumn 1845 he was engaged by G P Bidder on plans for the North Staffordshire Railway for which Robert Stephenson, Bidder and T L Gooch were joint engrs. On the passing of the NSR Act in 1846 Forsyth became resident engineer on a large portion of the line. In 1849 he became engineer of the whole company, and thie included the Trent & Mersey Canal. In 1853 the manager, S.P. Bidder, resigned and went to Canada, and Forsyth reluctantly accepted appointment as manager in addition to his position as engineer until he resigned both in 1864. He then became consulting engineer and engineer for the construction of new NSR lines until his death. During this period he was partly responsible for the Leek branch opened 1 November 1867; Marple-Macclesfield (NSR/MSLR Joint) opened 2 August 1869; Silverdale-Market Drayton opened 1 February 1870; Audley, Newcastle and Silverdale widening; and the Potteries Loop line, finally opened 15 November 1875. When his health began to fail he was assisted by his brother Joseph whom he took as a pupil in 1857. Marshall and Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes. Diagram from paper by him on Clough Hall Tunnel on the Potteries Loop line see Backtrack, 2023, 37, 390. 

Frere, George Edward
Born in Clydach in Breconshire on 29 January 1807 and died on 3 December 1887. Recruited by Brunel as Resident Engineer for the western division from Bristol to Shrivenham. This included the Box Tunnel, the Bath viaducts and the Avon Bridge in Bristol. He left in 1841 and worked for ironmasters in South Wales, subsequently becoming one. In 1846 he inherited estates at Finningham in Suffolk and Roydon in Norfolk. He died on 3 December 1887. R. Angus Buchanan in Chrimes

Fry, Edwain Maxwell (duplicate entry)
Born in Liscard, Merseyside on 2 August 1899; died 3 September 1987. Educated at the Liverpool Institute High School; served in the King's Liverpool Regiment at the end of the First World War. After the war he received an ex-serviceman's grant that enabled him to enter Liverpool University school of architecture in 1920, where he was trained in "the suave neo-Georgian classicism of Professor Charles Reilly.The curriculum of the course included town planning as an important component, and Fry retained an interest in planning throughout his career. He gained his diploma with distinction in 1923. The next year he worked for a short time in New York before returning to England to join the office of Thomas Adams and F. Longstreth Thompson, specialists in town planning.His next post was chief assistant in the architect's department of the Southern Railway, where in 1924-6 he was architect of three neo-classically styled railway stations, at Margate, Ramsgate and Dumpton Park. He then changed his style to modernism and achieved considerable success, but does not appear to have designed any further railway structures. On his retirement in 1973, Fry and his wife moved from London to a cottage in Cotherstone, County Durham, where he died in 1987 at the age of 88.

Fryer, William
Born in 1788; died in Tynemouth in1864 and buried in Preston Cemetery on 30 January 1864. Surveyor, worked with father as land surveyor; in 1827 was described as 'receiver general of the land revenues of the Crown for the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire and Westmorland'; in 1852 took up residence in Tynemouth. Rennison, R.W.  The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and its engineers; 1829­1862. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203-33.

Surnames beginning letter "Ga"

Gamond, Aimé Thomé
Born in Poitiers in November 1807 and died in 1876. Spent his personal wealth in working for a fixed link across the English Tunnel. This included surveying the sea bed and establishing that chalk existed all the way across the Straits of Dover. In 1867 an agreement was reached between Naopleon III and Queen Victoria for a tunnel with a ventilating shaft on the Varne sandbank. Wikipedia and televison broadcast on BBC4.

Gardner, John
Engineer to Nantwich & Market Drayton Railway. Dawn Smith and Wells in Backtrack, 2023, 37, 154

Garwood, Alfred Edward
Born London on 16 March, 1845, died 19 November, 1909. Trained in the locomotive department of the Brighton Railway, he spent 15 years in responsible positions on railways in Russia and Egypt, subsequently practising as a Consulting Engineer in Westminster and at Newport, Mon., where he acted also as Resident Engineer for the company on the Alexandra Docks and Railway undertaking. ICE virtual library obituary .Autobiography: Forty years of an engineer’s life at home and abroad (Russia, Egypt, France, etc.), with notes by the way Newport, (Mon.) : A.W. Dawson, [1903]. 222pp. Reviewed with incorrect name in Loco. Mag., 1904, 10, 14.

Gibb, Alexander
Born Larbert, Stirlingshire on 21 September 1804; died Aberdeen 8 August 1867. Educated Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College, Aberdeen. He then entered the office of Thomas Telford. Returning to Aberdeen he was engaged on lighthouse construction by Robert Stevenson. From 1827 he and his father were involved in bridge and harbour works at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow: in 1836 they built the Victoria Bridge over the Wear on the Durham Junction Railway under T.E. Harrison, the chief engineer. They then contracted for a portion of the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway at Almond Valley. In 1842 he returned to Aberdeen as civil engineer and planned and carried out many railways in the north of Scotland. After the death of his father he was engineer to the Aberdeen Railway and the GNSR. He remained engineer to the GNSR until his death. John Marshall and Tom Day in Chrimes. Father of George Stegmann Gibb.

Gibb, Sir Alexander
Born Broughty Ferry on 12 February 1872; died Hartley Wintney, Hants on 21 January 1958. Fifth civil engineer in line from William Gibb (born 1736), his great-great grandfather; John Gibb (1776-1850), his great grandfather; Alexander Gibb (above), his grandfather; and Easton Gibb, his father. Educated Rugby Sehool and University College, London. 1890 became pupil of Sir John Wolfe Barry and H.M. Brunel, After four years including one as outdoor inspector on the Lanarkshire & Dumbartonshire Railway he continued another five years on Wolfe Barry's staff. During this period he was resident engineer on railway widenings and extensions induding widening the Metropolitan Railway (Harrow-Finchley Road) and the Bow-Whitechapel Railway. In 1900 he joined his father's firm Easton Gibb & Son, then building Kew Bridge over the Thames. As managing director he carried out many important dock works. In 1916 appointed chief engineer, construction, to British armies in France. Next became civil engineer in chief to the Admiralty. 1919 appointed director general civil engineering to the Ministry of Transport. 1921 set up as consulting engineer. Author of significant biography of Thomas Telford (reviewed Locomotive Mag. 1935, 41, 369). Long entry by Mike Chrimes in BDCE3 and ODNB entry by A.J.S. Pippard rervised by I.P. Haigh. John Marshall who refers to District Railway rather than Metropolitan Railwayl

Gibb, (Alexander) Easton
Born in 1841, second son of Alexander Gibb; died 22 May 1909 in Twickenham. Notable for his work for the Admiralty at Rosyth, but some railway work mainly in Scotland and also for the North Eastern Railway. P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in BDCE3

Gibb, John
1776-1850: see Skempton

Gibbs, Joseph
Baptised in Stoke-on-Trent on 31 January 1798. Began his engineering career in Holland and eventually superintended hydraulic works in Dutch Colonies, probably in Surinam. On return to Britain he set up his own works at Crayford Mills in Kent. In 1834 he surveyed a route for the London & Croydon Railway and for the Great North Railway beteen London and York and Norwich. In 1835 he was appointed Engineer of the London & Croydon Railway. He subsequently surveyed railway routes to Maidstone and Brighton, then abandoned railway work in favour of global geological and other surveying. He died in Londion on 11 February 1864. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes

Giles, Alfred
Mike Chrimes in Chrimes

Giles, Francis John William Thomas
Born Walton-on-Thames in 1787; died in London on 4 March 1847. Began his career as a civil engineer under John Rennie. He worked on surveys of the Thames, Mersey, Wear and Tyne and harbours at Dover, Rye, Holyhead, Dundee and Kingstown (Ireland, now Dunlaoghaire). He also worked on canal and river navigation projects. He was present at the inquiry into the Liverpool & Manchester Railway Bill and his opposition to George Stephenson, chiefly the 'impossibility of taking a railway across Chat Moss was unfortunate and did nothing to enhance his reputation. He was asked to report on the route of the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway and in 1829 he was appointed engineer. The work involved the tremendous Cowram cutting nearly a mile long and at one point 110ft deep. He also designed the Wetharal bridge, 564ft long, with 5 semicircular arches of 80ft span, 95ft above the River Eden, built 1830-34, and the Corby viaduct, 480ft long, 70ft high.  Hartley in Early main line railways notes that Giles' viaducts on the N&CR invite comparison with the great aqurducts of the Roman Empire and that at the Geld Viaduct he erected a stone that would not have been out of place in the Roman world. In 1833, having taken on too many engagements, he left to become an engineer on the London & Brighton Railway and the London & Southampton Railway, later the LSWR. His inability to provide reliable estimates of time and cost led to his dismissal in 1837 and replacement by Joseph Locke. He was an active M of the ICE from 1842. Marshall and Rennison Trans Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203

Giles, George
Born at Hersham Farm, Walton-on-Thames in 1810. Died Isle of Wight on 9 April 1877. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes . Dennis R. Mills J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc, 2016 (227), 538 mainly concentrates on his activities in Lincoln, but also includes family trees and his railway engineering especially that in Hamburg

Godden, H.L.
Engineer of the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway. See N.A. Comfort. The Mid-Suffolk Light Railway. Oakwood Press. 1986. Locomotion Paper No. 22

Goodrich, Simon
Born on 28 October 1773, the son of Isaac Goodrich of Suffolk. Nothing is known about his education and training, but in December 1796 he was appointed a draftsman to the mechanist in the office of Sir Samuel Bentham (1757–1831), inspector-general of naval works. In October 1799 he was appointed mechanist at an annual salary of £400. Goodrich was chief assistant to Bentham and implemented schemes of improvement instigated by Bentham for the dockyards. Goodrich was involved in the introduction of steam power at Portsmouth and other dockyards for working machinery. The engineer Joshua Field (1787–1863) was a pupil of Goodrich from 1803 to 1805. Between August 1805 and November 1807 Goodrich acted as Bentham's unpaid deputy during the latter's absence in Russia. He remained as mechanist until December 1812, when the inspector-general's office and staff were abolished, following suspicions about Bentham's private business ventures. Goodrich continued as mechanist without warrant, working on a freelance basis, until April 1814, when he was reappointed engineer and mechanist to the Navy Board at an annual salary of £600. After Bentham's departure, Goodrich managed the engineering works of the dockyards, and acted as a consultant to the Navy Board on engineering matters. This required residence at Portsmouth, until his retirement in 1831. His annual pension was £400. Goodrich was elected a corresponding member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in December 1820, and transferred to membership in December 1837. Among his voluminous papers and drawings, preserved in the Science Museum Library, is a detailed daily journal, which, though not fully complete, extends from 1802 to 1845. It shows that he was in professional contact with most of the important engineers of the day, including Richard Trevithick, Marc Isambard Brunel, Henry Maudslay, and Matthew Murray; many of their letters are preserved with his papers, which also provide valuable information about the engineering manufactories he visited as he travelled throughout the country on naval business. They contain a mass of illustrated notes about machinery, advertising leaflets, and details of prices, weights, and dimensions. Goodrich's personal life is obscure. His wife's name is not known, but he had a daughter called Mary: when his post under Bentham was abolished he wrote to the Navy Board requesting compensation for loss of office as his salary was barely enough to maintain his family, and he had no savings. Goodrich moved to Lisbon in 1834 and died there on 3 September 1847, his importance unrecognized by an obituary. ODNB entry by A.P. Woolrich Forward, E.A. Gurney's railway locomotives, 1830. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 1921, 2, 127-9 which exploited Goodrich collection. Crosley, A.S. Simon Goodrich and his work as an engineer (Compiled from his journals and Memoranda) - Part III, 1813-23.  Trans. Newcomen Soc., 1959, 32, 79-92.

Surnames beginning letter "Gr"

Graham, George
Born Hallhills, Dumfriesshire in 1822; died Kelvinside, Glasgow on 30 June 1899. Apprenticed to Robert Napier, Glasgow, on marine engines. Forced by poor health to adopt an outdoor life, he was engaged in 1845 on the survey for the Caledonian Railway under Locke and on 10 September 1847 he rode on the engine of the first passenger train from Beattock to Carlisle. In 1853 he succeeded Locke and Errington as chief engineer and was responsible for expansion of the system and for bridging the Clyde seven times. In 1880 he was relieved of the responsibility for permanent way and works when two divisional engineers were appointed under him and he became responsible only for new works. The system then totalled 775 miles and included the Greenock tunnel, 1 mile 340 yds, the longest in Scotland.. Marshall and Ted Ruddock in Chrimes..

Graham-Gribble, Theodore
Born as Gribble, but changed name by deed poll to Graham-Gribble in 1925. Born in London on 18 May 1851; died in Worthing on 24 February 1947. Educated partly in |Heidelberg and at Glasgow University. Pupil of R.P. Bell & D. Miller in Glasgow. Between 1876 and 1880 he worked for the Great Eastern Railway on the Tottenham to Alexandra Palace line and at Parkeston Quay. Between 1881 and 1883 he worked on the Lynn & Fakenham Railway on its Norwich extension under H.M. Millett: this included Norwich City station. In 1883 he went to Canada to work as Resident Engineer on the North Shore of Lake Superior section of ther Canadian Pacific Railway. After a brief return to Britain he became Chief Engineer of the Haiwaiian Railways & Tramways. After time on Mainland North America which included being resident engineer on the Elevated Railways of Chicago he returned to Britain and worked under William Marriott on the Midland & Great Northern Railways Joint Committee on the Breydon Viaduct. He established a consulting business in 1901 and work included electricity generation on Java and the introduction of the trolleybus into Britain. Mike Chrimes in BDCE Volume 3 

Grainger, Thomas
Born in Ratho (Midlothian) on 12 November 1794; died Stockton-on-Tees on 25 July 1852. When sixteen he entered office of John Leslie, Edinburgh, to learn surveying. In 1816 set up on his own account as civil engineer and surveyor on road works. In 1823 he surveyed the Monkland & Kirkintilloch Railway and, following the Act of 1824, carried out its construction In 1834 Grainger built the Arbroath & Forfar Railway and in 1836 laid out the Glasgow & Greenock. He then laid out and built the Edinburgh, Leith & Newhaven. After 1845 Grainger was connected with the Edinburgh & Bathgate and Edinburgh, Perth & Dundee Railways, and harbours at Broughty Ferry and Ferryport-on-Craig on the Tay. He also designed a steam barge to carry railway wagons across the Tay. In England Grainger was engaged on the Leeds, Dewsbury & Manchester Railway (opened 1849), East & West Yorkshire Jn, and Leeds Northern Railways. Works included Morley tunnel, 1 mile 590 yds, Bramhope tunnel, 2 miles 234 yds, and the Wharfe viaduct of 21 arches of 60ft span. Grainger died as a result of a collision on the Leeds Northern Railway. Marshall 

Grantham, Richard Boxall
Born in Croydon on 13 December 1805; died London 5 December 1891. Worked in the office of Augustus Charles Pugin and then worked for the Rennies and Brunel (in the case of the latter on Brent Viaduct) and as resident engineer on the Cheltenham & Great Western Union Railway. From 1844 he worked on his own surveys for the London & Manchester, Direct Northern, Direct Norwich, Birmingham & Gloucester and Portsmouth Direct Railways. He was involved in the construction of the Forest of Dean Central Railway. in 1860 he became engineer to the Northern Railway of Buenos Aires and for several years was associated with the Quebrada Railway in Venezuela. On the Isle of Wight he was involved in land reclamation at Brading Harbour. Marshall and Ron Cox in Chrimes (latter with portrait)

Gravatt, William
Born in Gravesend on 14 July 1806; died in London on 30 May 1866. Apprenticed to Bryan Donkin where learned the skill of instrument manufacture. Worked on Thames Tunnel with Sir Marc Ismbard Brunel. Invented the dumpy level. Created FRS in 1832. Worked on canal construction including tunnels, and for the Great Western, Taff Vale and London & Southampton Railways. In June 1841 severed his ties with I.K. Brunel. David Greenfield in Chrimes (latter with portrait)

Greet, Ernest Hira.
B.Sc., A.M.Inst.C.E. (Trevithick Premium (1934)). Assistant. Engineer., Designs Department., Crown Agents for the Colonies, Technical training at Bristol University, 1911-14; Practical Training as Pupil at Cleveland Bridge and Engineering. Co., Ltd., Darlington, 1919-22; Attached Meteorological Section Royal Engineers., 1918. Resident Engr., outside contracts, for Cleveland Bridge Co., Ltd., 1922-25; Designer, Francis Morton & Co., Ltd., Liverpool, 1925-28. Author (jointly with R. W. Foxlee, M.Inst. C.E.) of Hammer blow impact on the main girders of rly. bridges. Contributed to discussion on ILocoE Paper 381

Gribble, Conrad
Born in 18XX; died 1961?. Son of Graham-Gribble. Expert in stresses in railway bridges: conducted tests in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, which were published in Ceylon and available online via pdf and in ICE. Worked on swing bridge in Folkestone Harbour and on concrete railway bridges. Deputy Chief Engineer of the Southern Railway.

Griffiths, W.G.
Appointed engineer of Rhymney Railway from 1905: see Locomotive Mag., 1905, 11, 38

Grimshaw, John
Born Guisley on 18 August 1763; died Sunderland 22 May 1840. . Important innovator of rope manufacture and took out three patents and had experience of steam traction; also part owner of Fatfield Colliery. The firm's ropes were used on the inclines on early railways in association with Benjamin Thompson. R.W. Rennison and J.G. James in Skemton. May have had a role in early locomotive development as he was a manager of the Fatfield Colliery  before 1815 when a locomotive constructed by Nowell & Co. of Sunderland was possibly evaluated. See Dawn Smith and Charlton (the latter devoted a chapter to Nowell and Grimshaw.

Grissell, Henry
Born in London on 4 July 1817; died 31 January 1883. Pupil of John Joseph Bramah. Designed bridges for London & Blackwall Railway, LNWR and Eastern Counties Railway. Established Regent's Canal Ironworks which produced a wide range of cast iron products. responsible for ironwork in London Bridge station roof and the railway swing bridges at Norwich, Reedham and Somerleyton. Gave evidence to the Royal Commission on the Application of Cast Iron to Railway Structures. James Sutherland in Chrimes.

Grissell, Thomas
Born in Stockwell on 4 October 1801; died Norbury Park on 16 May 1874. Educated St Paul's School. Articled to Henry Peto and then in partnership with him as contractor. Grissell was a very sound builder and works included Wharncliffe Viaduct, Curzon Street station, London & Blackwall Railway, the South Eastern Railway, and the Southampton & Dorchester Railway. He withdrew from the partnership with Peto in the mid 1840s. He was a master of temporary works.  James Sutherland in Chrimes. Marshall. Mike G. Fell. Brandon station. Backtrack, 2020, 34, 454.

Grothe, Albert
Born in Westphalia on 4 April, 1841, died in Mexico on 19 August, 1914. Educated at Utrecht, Holland, and after serving in the Dutch Army, abandoned a military career for engineering. In 1869 he was employed as a contractor’s engineer on the construction of bridges on the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway, and subsequently on the erection of the first Tay Bridge. In 1879 he became Manager of the Tharsis copper mines in Spain, and his subsequent career was devoted definitely to mining, with the exception of some years spent on irrigation work in Idaho. On leaving Spain he went to Mexico, where, after managing mining properties and introducing various new processes, he started consulting practice in partnership with H.F. Carter. Elected Member of Institution of Civil Engineers on 6 March 1883.North Brititsh Railway Study Gp. J., 2009. (107), 3- Charles McKean Battle for the North is fae more critical of Grothe's shortcomings on the erection of the first Tay Bridge.

Surnames beginning "Ha"

Halcrow, Sir William Thomson
Born on 4 July 1883 in Sunderland; died at his Folkestone home, on 31 October 1958. Only son of John Andrew Halcrow, master merchant seaman. Educated at George Watson's College, Edinburgh, and Edinburgh University. Began engineering career as pupil to P.W. Meik, the senior partner of Thomas Meik & Sons, consulting engineers in London. Early in his training Halcrow became an assistant on the Kinlochleven hydroelectric works, thus beginning his connection with a branch of the engineering profession to which he was destined to make considerable contributions. In 1905 he became resident engineer at Pozzuoli, Italy, for the reconstruction of a deep-water pier in reinforced concrete—one of the earliest uses of the material for such a purpose—following which he was engaged as an assistant engineer on the construction of the Loch Leven water-power works, Scotland, before gaining further experience abroad in Italy, Portugal, and Argentina.
In 1910 Halcrow became chief engineer to the contracting firm of Topham, Jones, and Railton, his major work being the construction of the King George V graving dock at Singapore, and in 1913 survey work for the dredging of the approach channel to the Rosyth Dockyard then under construction. During WW1 he was engaged on several Admiralty projects in Orkney and the Shetlands. At that time he recommended an effective eastern barrier to Scapa Flow, a project only undertaken after the sinking of the aircraft-carrier Royal Oak during the WW2. Afterwards he worked on the construction of the Johore causeway which joined Singapore Island to the mainland of Malaya, and on the design and construction of the port of Beira. In 1921 he resumed his connection with engineering consultancy, becoming a partner with C. S. Meik; the firm was known as C. S. Meik and Halcrow until 1944 when, after his knighthood, it was renamed Sir William Halcrow & Partners. He served as senior partner until his retirement in 1955.
He was joint consulting engineer with Sir Harley Dalrymple-Hay for the London Passenger Transport Board's tube railways, and carried out the extensions of the Bakerloo Line to Finchley Road and the Northern Line as far as East Finchley. As a consultant under the Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act he inspected many dams for water-power companies and advised on canal reservoirs for the railways and Birmingham Canal navigations.
During WW2 Halcrow's firm designed and constructed deep-level tunnel shelters in London for the Ministry of Home Security. He also acted as head of a group of consulting engineers who designed and constructed ordnance factories and storage depots. He was also associated with the War Office, as a member of the cabinet engineering advisory committee, on the design and construction of the ‘Phoenix’ units which formed part of Mulberry harbours for the invasion of Europe. In 1944 he was chairman of a panel of engineers appointed to report on the Severn barrage tidal power scheme. In 1950 he advised the New Zealand government on traffic problems in the city of Auckland. In 1951 he was chairman of a panel of engineers reporting on the Kariba Gorge and Kafue River hydro-electric projects in Rhodesia.
Halcrow was president of the engineering section of the British Association in 1947, president of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers (1953), and vice-president of the commission on large dams of the World Power Conference (1955). He held many other appointments, among which were colonel-commandant of the engineer and railway staff corps Royal Engineers (TA), member of the advisory council of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, chairman of the Hydraulics Research Board; and member of the executive of the National Physical Laboratory and of the Royal Fine Arts Commission.
Halcrow was also instrumental in persuading the UK government to set up a hydraulics research laboratory at Wallingford in Oxfordshire, while his colleagues were designing railway tunnels at Potters Bar (1955) and the earlier Woodhead Tunnel (1954) and starting work on the new Victoria Line underground line beneath central London.
Halcrow became a member of council of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1934, a vice-president in 1943, and was president in 1946–7; in 1930 he received the Telford gold medal for his paper on the Lochaber (water-power) scheme. In 1937–9 he was president of the British section of the Société des Ingénieurs Civils de France, whose gold medal he was awarded in 1939. He was a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur and an officer of the order of the Black Star. A reserved and impersonal man, Halcrow was neat, shrewd, and authoritative. He was an accomplished pianist and organist. His greatest gift was the ability to attract talented engineers to work with him, leading in consequence to the development of a firm of consulting engineers of high international reputation in several areas of civil engineering.  ODNB F.A. Whitaker, revised Alan Muir Wood with additional material on work for British Railways

Hall, Richard Thomas
Born in Falmouth in 1823; died in South Africa in 1889. In February 1849 he became the supertintendent of the Redruth & Chasewater Railway: he introduced steam power in 1853. In 1865 he left for South Africa, but his plans for a railway to link the Copper Co's mine to Port Nolloth was not accepted at this time, but he returned for its construction in 1869, The 2ft 6in gauge line was originally worked by mules, but Kitson supplied 0-6-2T known as the mountain type. The line worked from 1870 to 1942. Meanwhile, Hall became Traffic Manager for the Cape Railways. Graham L.D. Ross in Chrimes. D.B. Barton The Redruth & Chasewater Railway, 1824-1915.

Hamand, Arthur
Began to practice on his own account in Birmingham in 1867 and worked in conjunction with J.H. Tolmé. See Williams. J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2014 (219) 32.

Hammond, John Wallis
Born in 1800? Died Bristol in 1867. Pupil of I.K. Brunel. Oversaw many structures on the Paddington to Shrivenham section of the Great Western Railway including Wharncliffe Viaduct, Uxbridge Road bridge and Maidenhead bridge. Also responsible for standard gauge Bristol & Gloucester Railway. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes.

Hann, James
Born at Wahington, near Gateshead in 1799. Worked as a stoker to his father at Hebburn colliery and later as a fireman and engineer on Tyne paddle-steamers which belonged to Isaac Dodds. He joined the Newcastle Literary, Scientific and Mechanical Institution in its second session of 1825-6 as an enginewright and eventually established himself by reading a paper on differential calculus, and with Dodds published Mechanics for practical men in 1833. He moved to London to work at the nautical almanac office in Somerset House and in 1837 became a master at King's College School. He  assisted in revising Tredgold's Steam engine (John Buddle was clearly aware of his work) and contributed to the theoretical study of bridges He died in King's College Hospital on 17 August 1856. ODNB entry by Ben Marsden

Harper family
John and his brother Hugh founded a fencing business in Aberdeen in the mid-nineteenth century based on a patent for tensioning the wire from a cast iron straining post. These were widely used by the Great North of Scotland Railway. Associated with this were gates including those for level crossings. Later light suspension bridges were developed and this part of the business was floated off to John's son Louis in 1889. Some of these bridges are still extant as at Newquay in Cornwall. See book by great-grandson Douglas Harper. River, railway and ravine: foot suspension bridges for empire (Stroud: History Press, 2015) and review in Archive, 2015 (87), 46; 64. Book reviewed by Peter Cross-Rudkin in J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2016. 38, 466.

Harris, John
Born in Maryport on 16 July 1812; died 20 July 1869 in Kendal. Apprenticed to Thomas Storey in Auckland, Co. Durham, a Quaker civil and mining engineer. In 1836 he became the resident engineer on the Stockton & Darlington Railway and in 1844 he obtained a ten year contract to oversee the railway: during this period a new bridge was constructed over the Tees at Stockton. He was the engineer for the railway to Kendal (Backtrack, 2016, 16, 715). He went into partnership with Thomas Summerson in 1853 and manufactured permanent way materials and wagon components. Gillian Cookson in Chrimes.

Harrison, Joseph
Born at Swalwell on 7 January 1826. Apprenticed to James Greay, colliery viewer, at Marley Hill near Newcastle. He gained further experience at Stublock and Urpeth Collieries. In 1848 he acquired knowledge of bridgework on the Haltwhistle to Alston railway and from 1850 joined Henry Rouse surveying and constructing a railway from Alexandria to Cairo. On behalf of Robert Stephenson he superintended the construction of a double swing bridge across the River Nile. In 1860 he became chief engineer of the Punjab Railway and then the Scinde, Punjab & Delhi Railway until 1875. He died at Mentone in France on 24 February 1899. M. Kaye Kerr and Ian J. Kerr in Chrimes 

Hartley, Jesse
Born 21 December 1780; died 24 August 1860. Superintendent of Dock Estate in Liverpool from 1820. Developed fireproof dockside buildings. Associated with Manchester, Bolton & Bury Raillway. Consultant for major structures, such as the Sankey Viaduct on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. See Hartley in Early Main Line Railways

Harvey, Ranald John.
Died 23 June 1967. Senior Partner of the firm of Ranald J. Harvey & Partners, Consulting Engineers and Member of Honour of the Permanent Commission of the International Railway Congress. After receiving his early training in the works and drawing office of Dick Kerr & Co., Preston, he went to South America where he spent many years as Chief Engineer and Manager of a group comprising a railway, harbour, and a hydro electric generating station and, after returning to England, he joined Sir Duncan Elliott, Consulting Engineer, whose practice included the New Zealand Government.
On Sir Duncans retirement in 1922, Ranald Harvey was appointed Consulting Engineer to the New Zealand Government, and, in this capacity, he represented the New Zealand Government Railways on the Permanent Commission of the International Railway Congress Association of which he was a very active member. He attended all their Congress Meetings in the capitals of various countries, including Madrid, Paris, Cairo, London, Lucerne, Lisbon, Rome and Stockholm. It was at Lucerne in 1947, that he acted as Reporter to the Electric Traction Section.
In addition to railways, Ranald Harvey has been connected with large-scale engineering projects carried out in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and other part of the world. He had been a Member of ILocoE since 1929 and was a Member of Council from 1944 to 1958. J. Instn Loco. Engrs, 1967, 57, 300.

Hennet, George
Born in York on 24 May 1799. Educated at home and at Boston Grammar School where within two years he was employed as an assistant teacher of mathematics and he went on to teach mathematics in Stamford and at Addiscombe in London. In 1827 he produced a ¾in to 1 mile map of the County of Lancashire published by Teesdale & Co. He assisted Charles Vignoles in surveying the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. He married Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Follett at Topsham who was the daughter of a timber merchant. He assisted with surveying the London & Birmingham and London & Southampton Railways and then became involved with I.K. Brunel designing timber viaducts and stations on the South Devon Railway. He patented with George Hinton Bovill and Robert Griffiths an atmospheric traction system: GB 10,734/1845 Construction of parts of apparatus for propelling carriages and vessels by the atmosphere; propelling carriages and vessels by atmospheric pressure (Woodcroft). He built an iron foundry in Bridgwater in 1845, owned the Great Western Engine Works in Bristol and built the Landore Viaduct. He became bankrupt in 1853 and died on 20 April 1857. Brian J. Murless in Chrimes.

Heppel, John Mortimer
Born in Taplow on 23 December 1817; died on 21 March 1872. Educated Merchant Taylor's School and London University. Engineering education under G.P. Bidder and then with Rennies when he worked on the Northern & Eastern Railway. He then joined a German Moser in a partnership to manufacture pumping machinery in Aachen, but this was dissolved in 1847. He then worked on the North Staffordshire Railway, on railways in Switzerland and lines in Algiers and Riga before becoming chief engineer of the Madras Railway in 1857. He had considerable linguistic as well as engineering ability. He consulted on the Peruvian Railway from 1865 and the Oudh & Rohilkhund Railway from 1866. He consulted on the Fell system of locomotion and the construction of a bridge across the Forth. M. Kaye Kerr and Ian J. Kerr in Chrimes.

Surnames beginning letter "Ho"

Hodgkinson, Eaton
Born on 26 February 1789 at Anderton, Great Budworth, near Northwich. Harshly taught as a child but educated himself in sciece and mathematics, possibly assisted by John Dalton. When 31 vhe joined the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society and wrote his first paper two years later on the bending strength of materials. He assisted William Fairbairn in the design of cast iron beams and columns for textile mills and extended these analyses to bridges on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway and also examined wrought iron. In 1841 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Hodgkinson's greatest and most complex work related to Stephenson's Conway and Britnnia Bridges. Hodgkinson was also greatly involved in the repercussions from the collapse of Robert Stephenson's bridge across the River Dee in Chester on 24 May 1847. He was elected an honourary member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, but his real genius lay in mathematics. He died on 18 June 1861 and is buried at Anderton. James Sutherland in Chrimes.

Holby, J.W.
Presented On the construction of permanent way: Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1849, 1, 21. Cited by Andrew Dow in Railway on p. 103.

Holden, Charles Henry
Born 12 May 1875 at Great Lever, Bolton, Lancashire; died in his home at 87 Harmer Green Lane, Welwyn on 1 May 1960. His childhood was unsettled by the bankruptcy of his father, and then by the death of his mother in 1883. He went to school in St Helens where his father, trained as a fitter and turner, had found work. In April 1892 Charles Holden was articled to Everard W. Leeson, a Manchester architect, and during his articles he attended Manchester School of Art (1893-4) and Manchester Technical School (1894-6), where he was an outstanding student. During these formative years he made lasting friendships, especially with the artist Muirhead Bone, and found inspiration in the writings of Walt Whitman. Holden's domestic life was always simple, even austere, and he approached his architectural work in an unaesthetic, increasingly impersonal way.
With his articles completed, Holden worked for Jonathan Simpson in Bolton from 1896 to 1897 and then moved to London, where he worked for about a year for the arts and crafts architect C.R. Ashbee. In about 1898 Holden began living with Margaret Steadman (1865-1954), wife of a Scottish schoolteacher whom she never divorced, but with Holden she enjoyed a long and loving relationship, although they had no children. They lived at first in Norbiton, moved to Codicote in Hertfordshire, in 1902 then to Harmer Green, where Holden designed their house. Their way of life combined spirituality, ruralism, and social responsibility. Holden attended the Quaker meeting-house in Hertford, and commuted daily to London.
In October 1899 he joined the practice of H. Percy Adams as chief assistant. Adams specialized in hospital design. Holden won the competition for the Central Reference Library, Bristol (1903–6), with drawings done in his spare time. Its happy relationship with the cathedral and the adjoining eleventh-century gateway, its dramatically simple rear elevation, and its long freedom from structural defects were remarkable achievements for one so young. In 1907 he entered into partnership with Adams, and works of this time include the British Medical Association at 429 Strand, London (1906–8; now Zimbabwe House), and the Bristol Royal Infirmary (1909–12). During the First World War, Holden served with the London ambulance column, and then with the directorate of graves registration and enquiries in France. In 1920 he was appointed one of the Imperial War Graves Commission's principal architects for France and Belgium, alongside Reginald Blomfield, Herbert Baker, and Edwin Lutyens. Over the next eight years he and his assistant architects, notably W.C. von Berg and W.H. Cowlishaw, were responsible for the layout and buildings of sixty-seven cemeteries. Holden's cemetery buildings demonstrate his love of Portland stone and the growing simplification of his work: they are on the whole more severe than those of his colleagues, and their reticence is moving. Between the wars Holden's practice was known as Adams, Holden, and Pearson—Lionel Pearson had become a partner in 1913. ‘C.H.’, as Holden was known in the office, was a shy, meticulous, kindly employer, and he had the loyalty of his staff. But he stood rather apart from his partners because so much of his time went on two large but very different projects: for the London Underground and for the University of London. By this time his designing was no longer eclectic. For both clients he designed austerely detailed, geometrical masses, in a style which aimed not to be a style.
Gordon Biddle (Oxford Companion) aptly states that "it was an inspired choice to appomt Holden; for first the Underground Group, and then after 1933 to the London Passemger Transport Board" The work for the London Underground was done in the name of the coherent system of public transport which the chairman, Lord Ashfield, aimed to create out of a tangle of existing networks—and in the name of modernity, the special concern of Ashfield's assistant Frank Pick. In the mid-1920s Holden designed façades for stations on the Northern Line extension from Clapham South to Morden: spare, Portland-stone frames that could be bent, like a screen, to suit different sites. In the 1930s, following a short study tour of transport architecture in northern Europe, he designed complete stations at either end of the Piccadilly Line: flat-roofed structures in brick and concrete, quiet, rational, and distinctly modern. Arnos Grove (1932) is the best-known. He also designed equipment and furniture, working towards a coherent visual identity for the underground. When he was elected a royal designer for industry in 1943, it was for transport equipment. Between these two phases came the headquarters of the London Underground, 55 Broadway (1926–9), also part of Ashfield's campaign for unification. A tall, steel-framed building with the upper storeys stepped back in the American manner, 55 Broadway rose with easier grace and to a greater height than any of its contemporaries, and earned Holden the London architecture medal in 1929.
In 1931 Holden was commissioned to design the University of London's central building in Bloomsbury. The university wanted a tower, partly to give a sense of identity to the many departments scattered over Bloomsbury. Holden designed an immense building facing onto Malet Street between Montague Place and Torrington Place, with a long spine on the axis of the British Museum, towers at either end, and lower wings between the spine and the street. The university could not afford to build this scheme, and in 1932 Holden reduced it to its southern part, which forms the present Senate House, plus individual buildings placed around the edge of the site to the north. It was still ambitious, a tower 215 feet high with space for 950,000 books on an internal steel frame. The rest of the building was of traditional masonry because Holden could not trust steel to last the centuries he and his clients planned for the building.
Holden's buildings display the work of many notable sculptors, including Eric Gill and Henry Moore, but he is chiefly associated with the controversial figure of Jacob Epstein, whose unidealized, partly clothed figures on the British Medical Association building caused a public uproar. This only confirmed Holden in his view that Epstein was a raw, Whitmanic genius, and he employed him again at 55 Broadway, with more uproar. He wished that Epstein's work could have graced the sides of Senate House. During the last decade of his working life Holden was mainly concerned with town planning and reconstruction. Between 1944 and 1946 he reported on the reconstruction of Canterbury with H.M. Enderby, and of the City of London with William Holford. In 1947 he was commissioned by the London county council to prepare a scheme for the layout of buildings on the South Bank between County Hall and Waterloo Bridge, to supersede the planning sketch of the area included in the wartime county of London plan.  Mainly from ODNB entry by Charles Hutton, revised Alan Crawford
Lawrence, David. Underground architecture. London: Capital Transport, 1994.

Hope, Alaric
Chief Engineer Cardiff Railway from 1914 until 1922: : RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10. The Cardiff Railway. Locomotive Mag., 1924, 30, 204; Locomotive Mag., 1925, 31, 23.

Horsley, Gerald Callcott
Born 31 October 1862, died 2 July 1917. Educated Kensington School. Articled pupil to Norman Shaw, and became student of the Royal Academy; Owen Jones travelling student of Royal Institute of British Architects. Designed many buildings, including St Paul’s Girls’ School, and  St Chad’s Church, Longsdon. (Who Was Who). Biddle (Victorian stations) considered his work for the Watford New Line (LNWR) especially at Harrow & Wealdstone and Pinner Stations to be worthy. Biddle noted that Betjeman in First and Last Loves considered Hatch End station to be "halfway beween... a bank and a medium sized country house." Horsley became President of the Architectural Association.

Hughes, Samuel
Mentioned by Adrian Tester in Modellers Backtrack, 1992, 1, 204 as working for Moorsom as Resident Engineer on the Birmigham & Gloucester Railway. Mentioned on internet for his life of Jessop (see Ottley 188) with whom he worked on canals and in Dawn Smith as Engineer to the London & York Railway. Tester suggests may have introduced American practice on Birmingham & Gloucester Railway

Humber, William
Baptised at Fulmer in Buckinghamshire on 3 February 1821. Pupil of G. Watson who was an agent for Hugh McIntosh who worked on Great Western Railway contracts. From 1847 he worked as an engineer for Thomas Brassey. He then established his own business writing books on bridge design. He died on 14 April 1881. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes,

Hunt, William
Born Banbury on 8 January 1843; died Manchester 29 March 1897. Educated Bedford Commercial School. In November 1858 he was artided to H.D. Martin, chief engineer of the East & West India Docks, London. In 1861 he joined the locomotive works of the North London Railway at Bow, firstly in the shops and later in the drawing office under William Robinson. During 1862-5 he was engaged on constructing railways on the Isle of Wight. In 1869 he became assistant resident engineer under Benjamin Burleigh  on the East London Railway south of the Thames; then resident engineer under Hawkshaw on the East London Railway north of the Thames including the difficult section under the eastern basin of the London docks. H then became chief assistant to John Smith Burke on the Dublin Trunk connecting lme and other railways, and also on preparation of parliamentary plans and estimates. In June 1876 he was appointed chief assistant engineer on the LYR under Sturges Meek and was engaged on completing the Chatburn to HelIifield railway, the Manchester Loop, Manchester-Radcliffe, Ripponden branch, Clayton West branch, Thorpes Bridge Junction to Oldham and Brighouse to Wyke lines. In September 1882 he succeeded Meek as chief engineer. Under Hunt the LYR carried out works involvmg expenditure of £8million, including rebuildmg Liverpool Exchange station, new goods and passenger stations at Bradford and extensive widening works around Manchester and the rebuilding of Manchester Victona station. At the time of his death he was superintending the passage of  a large LYR bill through Parliament. Marshall .

Hunter, Charles Lafayette
Chief Engineer Cardiff Railway from 1882 until death in 1902: RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10.; The Cardiff Railway. Locomotive Mag., 1924, 30, 204-5; 374; 1925, 31, 23.

Hurtzig, Arthur Cameron
Born in London in September 1855. Educated Ware Grammar School and University College, London. Pupil of Sir Banjamin Baker. Moved to Rosslare Harbour and Waterford & Wexford Razilway in 1875 to work on Rosslare Harbour. Between 1881 and 1888 was associated with Alexandra Dock, Hull, diring construction becoming Resident Engineer. In 1891 he joined Sir Benjamin Baker and on the death of Baker the firm became Baker & Hurtzig.

Hyde, Mark
Born in Sheffield on 13 March 1823; died in Manchester on 10 May 1893. Civil engineer, MSLR. 1844-50 engaged on surveying and preparing parliamentary drawings for several railway schemes in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. He then joined the staff of John Fowler under whom he worked on the eastern section of the MSLR between Sheffield, Grimsby and New Holland. On its completion he moved to Manchester, the headquarters of the company, where he remained as chief engineering assistant until  June1886 when ill health forced him to retire. His most important works were the Grimsby-Cleethorpes, Godley-Woodley, Tinsley-Rotherham, Rotherham-Masborough lines and the doubling of the Barnsley branch. He also assisted in the const of the CLC Manchester-Warrington-Liverpool line, opened in 1873. Marshall 

Surnames beginning "I"

Inglis, William
Born Perth 5 October1856; died Airdrie 18 May 1908. Educated in Burntisland and at Edinburgh Royal High School. Served engineering apprenticeship on the staff of the NBR at Edinburgh from 1872. In February 1882 he was appointed maintenance engineer of the Northern division of the NBR. During completion of the Arbroath-Montrose line and the reconstruction of the bridge over the South Esk at Montrose he came into close contact with William Arrol. When Arrol secured the contract for construction of the second Tay Bridge in 1882 he appointed Inglis as resident engineer until completion of the bridge in 1887. Later Inglis acted as resident engineer for Arrol on the Forth Bridge connecting lines south of the bridge. In 1891 he became a partner in the Lochrin Iron Works at Coatbridge.

Surnames beginning "J"

Jackson, [Sir] John
Born on 4 February 1851 in York, the youngest of the five children of Edward Jackson (1789-1859), goldsmith. Jackson was educated at Holgate Seminary, and in 1866 was apprenticed to William Boyd of Spring Gardens engineering works, Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1868 he proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he won prizes for engineering, surveying, and political economy. Later he was awarded an honorary LLD by the university and, in 1894, he was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. After leaving Edinburgh University he returned to Newcastle, where for a short time he worked for his older brother, William Edwin Jackson, a well-established contractor, before establishing his own firm. Jackson was of average build with blue eyes and a small beard and was bald from 19, as a consequence of which he gained his first large contract: the most satisfactory tender for the Stobcross Docks Contract No. 4 (Glasgow). In 1875 he founded his contracting business which was incorporated as Sir John Jackson Ltd in 1898. There were subsidiary companies in Bolivia, Canada, Chile, South Africa, and Turkey. He had his own shipping line, the Westminster Shipping Company Ltd, which transported his machinery and materials all over the world. In 1879 Jackson completed, in quicksands, the Stobcross Dock at Glasgow. His completion in 1894 of the Manchester Ship Canal in two-thirds of the contract time earned him a knighthood in 1895. At the same time he was laying the foundations of Tower Bridge, London.
Jackson's greatest work in Britain was the extension of the Admiralty works at Keyham, Devonport, in 1896-1907. This cost nearly £4 million and took ten years to complete. During this time Jackson and his family lived on the outskirts of Plymouth. He represented Devonport in parliament as a Unionist from 1910 to 1918, when he resigned. Jackson undertook major engineering works in many parts of the world. He constructed the naval harbour and graving dock at Simonstown in South Africa in 1910. For this he was made CVO by the Duke of Connaught at the opening ceremony. Jackson also carried out important harbour works at Singapore worth over £2 million, and constructed a breakwater at Victoria, British Columbia.
Foreign governments sought Jackson's services. He built the naval dock at Ferrol in Spain, he advised the Austro-Hungarian government on the extension of the arsenal at Pola, and in 1909 built the railway from Arica in Chile to La Paz in Bolivia which crossed the Andes at a height of 14,500 ft. For the Ottoman empire he performed irrigation works in Lebanon and constructed a port at Salif on the Red Sea. Irrigation works in Mesopotamia involved a huge barrage across the Euphrates at Hindiyyah: work which entailed the temporary diversion of the course of the river, made possible the cultivation of land. 10,000 men were employed and the cost was £15 million.
Jackson was consulted by the French as to the feasibility of constructing a bridge across the channel between Calais and Dover. Negotiations with the Russians for a second trans-Siberian railway were broken off by the outbreak of war in 1914. His firm was appointed superintending engineers to the war department. Two years later it was suggested that he had used this position to obtain exorbitant commission on further government contracts. Jackson demanded an inquiry; a royal commission was appointed and he was exonerated.
Jackson had common sense, was a sound man of business, and inspired loyalty. He was interested in the welfare of his workmen, of whom he often had thousands in his employ. He had many friends, and was broad-minded and generous. Rowing, yachting, camping, and bicycling with his daughters (who wore bloomers), were his favourite pastimes. He was elected a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1901. From about 1910 Jackson had a mistress, and whilst visiting her he died suddenly of heart failure in her house, on 14 December 1919. He left Mrs Henderson a large sum of money in his will, but an even greater sum to his widow. He was buried in Norwood cemetery in the family grave. From ODNB entry by Patricia Spencer-Silver. Military works on Salsibury Plain see Rly Arch 2013 (41) 29

Jebb, George Robert
Born in Baschurch in  Shropshire in 1838; died at Bucklebury Common, near Reading on 16 February 1927. Joined the engineering department of the GWR at Chester in 1855, serving his pupilage (1854-1858) under Alexander Mackintosh. Jebb assisted Mackintosh with the construction and subsequent management of various lines along the English-Welsh border between Chester and Shrewsbury. In 1859-1862 he was Resident Engineer on the Bryn-y-Owen, Wrexham & Minera Railways and 1862-1869 the Wrexham and Minera Extension and the Mold & Treiddyn mineral railways. After advising on the building of the Lemberg-Czernowitz railway in Galicia, he wag appointed in July 1869 to be Chief Engineer to the Shropshire Union Railway & Canal Company which had become a subsidiary of the LNWR in 1846. Jebb remained with the SURCC until his retirement in 1919. He was also appointed Chief Engineer to the Birmingham Canal Navigations (BCN) between 1875 and 1912 and subsequently as a member of their Board of Directors. During his time with the SURCC, he was involved with the extensive changes and development to Ellesmere Port docks and warehouses and the alterations following the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal (1887-1894) at a total cost of some £300,000. The SURCC, especially the Welsh canals, were an important source of trade diverted to the LNWR rather than the competing Great Western and Cambrian railways. This involved for example his being appointed in 1872 a Director of the Glyn Valley Tramway, which was a canal and railway feeder at Chirk, built partly at the expense of the SURCC. BDCE3 biography by Timothy Peters and Stephen Brown.

Jee, Alfred Stanistreet
Born in Liverpool on 2 August 1816; died Santander; Spain on 30 August 1858. Son of Matthew Jee, a merchant of Liverpool. A love for mathematics and observations of work on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway led him to engineering. In 1831 he became a pupil of Locke, working on the Grand Junction Railway. In 1838 he became resident engineer on the Lancaster & Preston Junction Railway, completed in 1840. He then moved to the Sheffield & Manchester and Huddersfield & Manchester, and the Huddersfield-Penistone lines. On the Sheffie\d-Manchester he was responsible for the erection of Dinting and Etherow viaducts and the boring of Woodhead Tunnel,  opened on 23 December 1845. On the Huddersfield & Manchester he was responsible for the first Standedge railway tunnel, opened on 1 August 1849. In 1853 he was granted a Patent: 2259 Construction of rails for railways. In 1851 his advice was sought in Spain where he built the line from Alas del Rey to Reinosa, 35 miles, opened March 1857. On 30 August 1858, with his brother, Morland Jee, he was driving an engine along an embankment which suddenly sank. The engine rolled down and he was killed instantly. His brother died ten days later. Marshall and David Hodgkins in Chrimes.
"During the first week of September 1955 I [Dunn Reflections] was taken to see Mr. Joseph Stafford who lived at Hill House, Ashover which was built in 1782 by Francis Thompson, the beam-engine man, when he was 35 years of age. George Stephenson is believed to have visited the house on several occasions. Mr. Stafford told me that his grand-children's great grandfather was Alfred Stanistreet Gee who was a pupil of Joseph Locke from 1834. He showed me 24 of Gee's diaries recurring items in which were "Dined with Stephenson" but perhaps the most significant entry was "We have picked up the temporary track and laid down the permanent way". This clearly shows where the term "permanent way" came from..

Jenkin, Silvanus William
Born in Redruth into Quaker family on 24 July 1821; died on 26 August 1911. Trained as a civil engineer with Tregelles & Fox in Falmouth. Steward on the Robartes Lanhydrock Estate; engineer of the Caradon & Liskeard Railway; surveyor of bridges in the Eastern Division of Cornwall and established S.W. Jenkin & Son. R.P. Truscott in Chrimes.  Nick Deacon in Rly Arch., 2014 (42), 2-38

Johnson, Richard
Born in Spalding in 1827; died Hitchin, Hertfordshire on 9 September 1924. In 1840 he was apprenticed to a builder and contractor at Spalding and for five years worked as a carpenter. In October 1847 he was appointed to Brydone & Evans, engineers, on constructing the GNR loop line (Peterborough-Boston-Lincoln), opened 17 October1848 and in 1855 he was appointed district engineer of the loop with an office at Boston. In 1859 he was appointed district engineer of the Towns Line (Peterborough-Grantham-Newark-Doncaster), which opened on 15 July 1852. On 25 June 1861 he was appointed chief engineer in succession to Walter Marr Brydone. Johnson was responsible for the planning and constructing the GNR Derbyshire extensions, opened in 1875-8, and the Leen Valley line in Nottinghamshire, opened 18 October 1881. He also reconstructed the Newark Dyke bridge, one of the largest on the GNR with a span of 262ft, in 1889-90, and built the new Copenhagen and Maiden Lane tunnels on approach to Kings Cross. He also reconstructed the bridges carrying the GNR over the MR at Peterborough and the Don at Doncaster. He retired at the end of December 1896. Marshall .

Johnson, Thomas Marr
Born at Appleby, in Lincolnshire, on 29 June 1826; died 20 July 1874. On leaving school, articled for four years to Dykes, surveyor, of Houghton, Yorkshire, and afterwards worked for two years, on his own surveying and other works connected with the Lincolnshire Fens. He then entered the office of John Fowler, with whom he remained until 1870. Johnson was entrusted by Fowler with works on the Mid-Kent railway, the Farnborough Extension of the West End and Crystal Palace railway, the River Nene drainage and navigation, and the Norfolk estuary, river, and reclamation works. Between 1860 and 1869, he was, in conjunction with Benjamin Baker occupied in the works of the Metropolitan railway system, with the exception of a few months passed in the United States; and it was during these years that. he developed fully the qualities which especially distinguished him in the professional circle in which he moved. These undertakings involved some of the heaviest and most complicated engineering works of the day. In February 1870, Johnson left Fowler and joined the G. Smith and Co., builders and contractors. During the partnership, which continued up to the time of his death, this firm executed several large works, amongst others, the new Town Hall at Manchester, and Eaton Hall, Chester. He also, in conjunction with William Mills superintended the design and execution of the new Holborn Viaduct Station for the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company. Johnson became a Member of the Civils on the 7 February 1863. He was also corresponding member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. ICE via Grace's Guide.

Johnstone, William
Born in Old Monkland on 1 July 1811 and articled to David Smith, a civil engineer. During 1837 he prepared the Parliamentary plans for the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock & Ayr Railway and in 1840 became its engineer and general manager: he retained this position when the Company grew into the Glasgow & South Western Railway. He retired in 1874, but remained as a consulting engineer until his death on 27 April 1877. He was a founding member of the Institution of Engineers & Shipbuilders in Scotland. Ted Ruddock in Chrimes.

Jopling, Charles Michael
Born on 30 March 1820 in London. From 1835 assisted father (Joseph Jopling) with attempts to improve the productivity of the Duke of Devonshire's slate quarries at Kirkby Ireleth in Furness including associated tramroads to Barrow and Piel harbours. He was involved with a proposal by John Hague to build an embankment: this led to a publication Sketch of Furness and Cartmel (1843).. He returned to London in 1843 and acted as a sub-agent for several contractors and was involved in the Dalton Viaduct. From 1851 he was involved in major railway projects in Italy with Brassey including the Central Italian Railway and the Maremma Railway. In 1862 he contracted malaria and died in Leghorn on 20 February 1863. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes..

Jopp, Charles
Born in 1820; died North Berwick in 1895. Educated at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University (but only for one year), then apprenticed to John Miller. He was involved on the Stirling to Dunfermline Railway, the Forth & Clyde Junction Railway; the Devon Valley Railway; the Edinburgh & Berwick Railway and the Hawick to Carlisle (Border Union Railway). He became the chief engineer of the North British Railway and was closely associated with the Leaderfoot Viaduct. Ted Ruddock in Chrimes. Research at St. Baldred's Episcopal Church where he was a vestryman should reveal full dates.

Surnames beginning letter "K"

Keeling, George William
Born in Bath in about 1839; died at Cheltenham on 21 June 1913. Trained by Thomas Blackwell. Worked on railways in the Forest of Dean and is best-known as Engineer of the Severn Bridge Railway. Keeling photographed the bridge during its construction. He was injured during an inspection of the railway at Drybrook Road in February 1903 and retired in 1904. Chrimes in Chrimes. See also Ian Pope Archive, 2020 (105) 48-64: portrait on page 64 (he had a luxuriant beard).

Kenworthy, Graham L.
Observed destruction of Euston Arch as a student civil engineer on  British Railways: letter Railway Wld, 1986, 47, 338. Later wrote several books on Norfolk railways including an audio book for the Midland & Great Northern Railway. Probably based in Norfolk.

Kingsbury, William Joseph
Born in Clapton on 30 December 1825; died on 9 January 1904. Educated privately and at Putney College for Civil Engineering. Worked for Bidder including drawings for the Hackney branch of the Eastern Counties Railway. In 1855 he became Resident Engineer on the Woodford and Loughton branch and became Bidder's private secretary in 1856. Bidder became a Consulting Enginner for the Scinde Railway and Kingsbury was involved in much of this work. At the same time he was Resident Engineer on the Kemp Town branch of the LBSCR. In 1q866 Kingsbury investigated traffic vibration in the Marylebone Road for Bidder, reporting to the Dean of Westminser Abbey on possible damage from the District Railway. In 1878 Kingsbury succeeded Bidder as Consulting Engineer on the Scinde, Punjab & Delhi Railway until the contract with th India Office expired in 1886. He had a great interest in choral music and held concerts at his home. Chrimes in Chrimes.

Kirkpatrick, Sir Cyril Reginald Sutton
Born 17 October 1872, died 25 August 1957. Educated at Repton and Crystal Palace School of Engineering. Pupil on the LNWR to E.B. Thornhill, Chief Engineer; an Assistant Engineer on the LNWR; Engineer in charge of various railway contracts; Engineer for Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co., Ltd, upon King Edward VII Bridge over the river Tyne; City Engineer, Newcastle on Tyne, 1906–10; Chief Assistant Engineer, 1910–13, and Chief Engineer, 1913–24, Port of London Authority; Past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1931–32; responsible for construction of 33 concrete caissons for Mulberry Harbour, with KCD group. Who Was Who

Kyan, John Howard
Born Dublin on 27 November 1774; died New York 5 January 1850. His father owned copper mines in County Wicklow, and Kyan was expected to take over, but in 1804 his father died in near poverty. Kyan was employed at a vinegar works at Newcastle upon Tyne, but subsequently moved to London, to Greaves's vinegar brewery in Old Street Road. The decay of the timber supports in his father's copper mines had already directed Kyan's attention to preserving timber: eventually he found that bichloride of mercury (or corrosive sublimate) gave the best results, having first applied it to timber in 1825. Without revealing the nature of the process, he submitted a block of oak impregnated with that substance to the Admiralty in 1828 and it was placed in a ‘fungus pit’ at Woolwich, where it remained for three years exposed to conditions favourable to decay. When taken out in 1831, it was found to be perfectly sound, and after further trials it still remained unaffected. Kyan patented his discovery in 1832 extending the application of the invention to the preservation of such materials as paper, canvas, cloth, and cordage. A further patent was granted in 1836. When wooden railway sleepers became general (in place of the stone blocks used on the early lines), a very profitable business for Kyan's company was anticipated, and for a time these hopes were realized. But it became evident that iron fastenings could not be used in wood treated by the method, on account of corrosive action, and it was said that the wood became brittle. ODNB entry by R.B. Prosser, revised R.C. Cox. Russell and Hudson pp. 62-4 who note contacts with Brunel who was a major user of Kyanized timber. A patent by William Edwayd Kyan is also listed. Andrew Dow Railway see page 57. Ray Shill in an article in J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., shows that Kyanisation was aa major step in expanding the railway network and See also further information from author

Patents (via Woodcroft)
UK 6253/1832. Preserving certain vegetable substances from decay. 31 March 1832
UK 6309/1832 Preserving paper, canvas, cloth, and cordage used for ships and other purposes, also the raw materials, as hemp, flax or cotton, of which the same may be made. 22 September. 1832
UK 6534/1833 Combination of machinery for steam-navigation. 21 December 1833.
UK 7001/1836 Preserving certain vegetable substances from decay. 11 February 1836
UK 7460/1837 Extracting ammoniacal salts from liquor produced in the manufacture of coal-gas. 4 November 1837
UK 7952/1839 Steam-engines. 29th January 1839

Kyan, William Edward
Presumably brother of above: Patent (via Woodcroft)
UK 11,817/1847. Consuming the smoke and economizing the fuel of steam-engines, breweries, and manufactories. 28 July 1847

Surnames beginning "L"

Landale, Charles
Of Newport in Fife,was the engineer involved in the re-alignment of the Elgin Railway in 1821. He was the engineer of the Dundee and Newtyle Railway which opened on 16 December 1831. McKean Battle for the North. According to Ransom was inventor of inclined planes.

Lane, Michael
Born in London 26 October 1802; died from Bright's disease in London on 27 February 1868. Began engineering career in the Thames Tunnel under Marc BruneI. From 1832-4 was resident engineer at Bristol docks under I.K. Brunel, and then at Monkwearmouth dock, Sunderland, until December 1840. He then became assistant to G.E. Frere, resident engineer on Western Division, GWR. In 1842 became resident engineer at Hull docks until August1845 when he rejoined the GWR as permanent way superintendent On the resignation of T.H. Bertram at the end of 1860 became chief engineer until his death. Much of his work was concerned with the installation of locking apparatus for signals and points. Principal lines built under Lane were: Berks & Hants extension from Hungerford to Devizes, opened 11 November 1862; Wycombe Railway to Thame, opened 1 August 1862, Oxford, opened 24. October 1864, and Princes Risborough to Aylesbury, opened 1 October 1863; Wenlock Railway, Buildwas-Much Wenlock, opened 1 February 1862, to Coalbrookdale, opened 1 November 1864, to Presthope, op 5.12.1864 and to Marsh Farm Junction on the Shrewsbury-Hereford line, opened 16 December 1867; Nantwich to Market Draytoo, opened 12 October 1863; WelIington-MaIket Drayton, opened 16 October 1867; Marlborough branch, opened 14 April 1864, and Faringdon branch, opened 1 June 1864. Became MICE 5 February 1861. Marshall and R. Angus Buchanan in Chrimes..

Langley, Alfred Andrew
Resident engineer of Midland Railway according to Dawn Smith. Presumably had worked for Great Eastern Railway as buffer sops installed at Liverpool Street. Inventor of hydraulic buffer stops described in Proc. Instn Mech. Engrs., 1886, 37, 105.

Larner, George
Dawn Smith notes that was Resident Engineer during construction of Lancaster & Carlisle Railway and was subsequently Engineer of the Dundee, Perth & Aberdenn Junction Railway and of the Dundeed & Arbroath Joint Committee.

Lavalley, Alexander
Born in Moscow in about November1821; died in Normandy on 20 July 1892. Educated at an English school in Tours, and in 1840 at the Polytechnic, Paris. Spent 2 years with Bury, Curtiss & Kennedy in LiverpooL Returning to France, he worked first under Tetard, engineer of the Northern Railway, then with Le Chatelier on the Paris-Lyon line. In 1846 he became engineer and works manger of Ernest Gouin & Cie, Paris, for the construction of locomotives and machinery. After inspecting the Menai Bridge he began building iron bridges, in France where the firm built the first, and in other countries. Besides many bridges in Russia the firm built the onlv tunnel  on the St Petersburg & Warsaw Railway. In 1862 they completed the Northern Railway of Spain, across the Pyrenees, in two years. Lavalley then had to resign from the firm because of ill health. From 1865, with Borel, he carried out construction contracts on the Suez Canal. The work included the filling of the Bitter Lakes with water from the Mediterranean. On its completion he was appointed engineer in chief of the canal. He was created a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1853 and an officer in 1868. Marshall

Lecount, Peter
Born 25 May 1794; died 1852: naval officer and a civil engineer with a strong interest in railways Wikipedia, Ottley 2934, 6303 and 6304, also Antony Dawson (Backtrack, 2020, 34, 600) and books.

Leslie, Bradford
Born in London on 18 August 1831. Died in London on 21 March 1926. Educated at Mercers' Company School and pupil of I.K. Brunel during which time he worked on bridges at Chepstow and Saltash and on SS Great Eastern. Through Brunel he went to India to work on bridges on the Eastern Bengal Railway. Other than a brief return to Britain to help with constructing the Ogmore Vally line the scene of his work was India. As Chief Engineer of the East Indian Railway his masterpiece was the cantilever Jubilee Bridge across the Hooghly iopened in 1887: he was knighted for this work. His health was undermined by malaria, Chrimes in Chrimes..

Levick. George
Inventor of form of tram rail (patent GB 6537/1877) with Frederick Winby: see Dow The Railway.

Livesey, James
Born in Preston  in 1831; died London 3 February 1925. Engineer of the Transandine Railway. Son of Joseph Livesey, editor of the Preston Guardian. Educated at Isherwood's Day School, then apprenticed to Isaac Dodds before entering Musgrave & Co's engineering works in Bolton. He then trained at Beyer, Peacock & Co Ltd, Manchester, from where he took up an appointment in Spain, later returning to England to establish himself as a consulting engineer. He visited Canada and the USA to gain knowledge of railway requirements abroad. He was then appointed consulting engineer to the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway, followed by similar appointments to other important railways in South America. The Transandean Railway, one of the greatest engineering feats in South America, was begun on the Argentine side in 1887 and on the Chilean side on 5. April 1889 and was completed in the summit tunnel, 1 mile 1,703 yds long, at an altitude of 10,466ft 4in 1910. During this time, in 1894, he took his son Harry into partnership and in 1900 Brodie H Henderson. Both the latter were knighted for services during WW1. Marshall Colin M. Lewis in Chrimes.. See also Andrew Dow: The Railway page 135 for cast plate sleepers.

Lloyd, William
Born in Newington in South London on 12 October 1822; died in London on 24 June 1905. Educated at an Islington run by a Presbyterian minister. He studied chemistry briefly at London University and served a pupilage from 1838 under Joseph Gibbs who assisted him on the conversion of the Croydon Canal into the London & Croydon Railway. In October 1838 he was made resident engineer of the St. Denis to Pontoise section of the French Northern Railway main line. In 1843 he was surveying proposed railways in Dorset and Wiltshire. He then joined the staff of Francis Giles where work included a proposed underground railway for London. In 1846 he worked for Robert Stephenson on the North Kent Railway; followed by being resident engineer of the Churnet Valley line of the North Staffordshire Railway. He then worked in the London office of the Stephenson Consultancy and when the Swedish Government sought plans for a railway system to extend from Malmo to Gefle Lloyd was given the task and the Swedish Government followed these plans. In 1854 moved to Chile to construct the railway between Valparaiso and Santiago: this was described in ICE Paper 1116. Following this he moved to the construction of the Vera Cruz to Mexico City section of the Imperial Mexican Railway which was dangerous as it was the haunt of bandits and rose to nearly 8000 feet. He was also involved in railway schemes in Argentina, Peru, Brazil and Guatemala. In 1887/8 he reported on abandoned gold and silver mines in California and Arizona and then lived in retirement during which he wrote his A railway pioneer: notes by a civil engineer in Europe and America from 1838 to 1888. London: Baines and Scarsbrook. 1900. AVAILABLE AS A FREE E-BOOK. He was an accomplished photographer and water colour painter. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes   

Lovatt, Henry
Born in Wolverhampton on 19 January 1831; died near Devizes on 2 May 1913.Contractor for many lengths of railway see Chrimes 3. Conisbrough Viaduct was a major undertaking see Archive, 2019 (102) 2

Lyster, Anthony George
Born Holyhead on 6 April, 1852, second son of George Fosbery Lyster (see Adrian Jarvis inb Chrimes), M. Inst. C.E.; died in London on 17 March, 1920. After four years at Harrow School (1867-71) and a year in Germany under a private tutor at Bonn, he became a pupil under his father, then Engineer to the Mersey Dock Trust. After a short term spent in the drawing-office of the Elswick works of Sir W.G. Armstrong and Company, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he returned to Liverpool, and was placed in charge, from the beginning of 1877, of the construction of the north and south dock extension works at Liverpool. These works, which had been sanctioned in 1873, to the designs of his father, involved a cost of about 4 millions sterling and added to the port a water area of about 100 acres and 6 miles of quay. They were described in a Paper by Mr. G. F. Lyster, presented to The Institution in 1890. He became Acting Engineer-in-Chief to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in 1890, and in the next eight years further development work, including the entire reconstruction of several docks, and involving the expenditure of 38 millions sterling, was undertaken under his direction. In 1898 he was appointed Engineer-in-Chief, and he held that position until 1913, when he became partner in the firm of Sir John Wolfe Barry and Partners. He continued to be the Consulting Engineer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and as such was responsible for the design of the Gladstone dock and the Mersey estuary revetment scheme. In the 50 years during which father and son were responsible for the engineering work of the Port of Liverpool, more than 13 millions sterling was expended on its docks. A.G. Lyster adopted sand dredging on an extensive scale for dealing with the Mersey bar, and made important improvements in dredging plant. After some preliminary work, which he described in a Paper presented to the International Maritime Congress in 1893, the 3,000-ton hopper suction dredger Brancker, fitted with a novel discharge system, was put into commission in 1893. Two others of similar capacity were added later, and in 1908 a fourth vessel, the Leviathan, of 10,000 tons hopper-capacity, was built to Lyster's designs. He was consulted at various times in connection with the improvement of other important harbours and ports, e.g., New York, Bombay, Port Elizabeth, and Shanghai. In 1908 he was appointed a member of the International Technical Commission for the Suez Canal. Lyster was a Lieut.-Colonel in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, and an Associate Professor of Dock and Harbour Engineering in the University of Liverpool, which conferred upon him in 1911 the Honorary Degree of Master of Engineering. He was elected a full Member of The Institution of Civil Engineers in 1882, became a member of the Council in 1904, and was President for the year 1913-14. In his Presidential Address to The Institution he dealt with the subject of the constitution of port authorities as affecting the organization and development of ports. Chrines in BDCE3.

Surnames beginning "M"

McBean, S.
Proposed railway between Glasgow and Inverness via Inveraray with a branch from the Great Glen to Kylerhea Ferry on the West Coast. See letter from John McGregor in North British Railway Study Group J., 2009 (106) 36.

McConnochie, John
Chief Engineer Cardiff Railway who retired in 1882: RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10. Locomotive Mag., 1924, 30, 204.

McCormick, William
Born in Glendermott, Londonderry, on 12 August 1800; died in Hampstead on 12 June 1878. Railway contractor in both Ireland, mainly in the North, and England. MP for Londonderry from 1860 to 1865. Cross-Rudkin lists his many partnerships and contracts in Chrimes

McDonald, John Allen
Born in Bristol on 9 July 1847; died Borrwash, near Derby on 18 December 1904. Educated at Bristol Grammar School. In 1865 he became a pupil of his brother A.H. McDonald who was then resident engineer under W.R. Galbraith on several branches of the LSWR in Surrey and Dorset. On completing his pupilage he was appointed assistant to Charles Richardson on the Bristol Harbour Railway. In 1869 he was appointed engineerr for Eckersley & Bayliss, contractor on the LNWR/Rhyrnney Railway extension to Rhymney, and the MR Yate- Thornbury branch. On this he was brought into contact with J.S. Crossley, chief engineer of MR. In August1871 he was engaged under John Underwood, engineer for new works, MR. As resident engineer he carried out the Trent-Leicester widening, branches at Burton upon Trent and Kettering and other MR works. In 1889 he was transferred to Derby as chief assistant for new works under A.A. Langley, then chief engineer. On the retirement of Langley in July1890 McDonald was appointed chief engineer, MR. He carried out much heavy work, including the Saxby-Bourne line, opened 1 May1894; the branch to Higham Ferrers, opened 1 September 1893; new lines between Sheffield and Barnsley, opened 1893 and 1897; the New Mills-Heaton Mersey line, opened 1901-2, including Disley Tunnel 2 miles 346 yds; Heysham branches, opened 11 July 1904; swing bridge over the Nene at Sutton Bridge; and rebuilding stations at Sheffield and Nottingham. At his death he had nearly completed the first 10 miles, opened 1905-9, of the never finished main line between Royston and Bradford. Widenings carried out by McDonald totalled 167 miles and included London-Kettering, Erewash Valley line, and Masborough-Royston. He also replaced almost all the cast iron and wooden bridges on the MR. In 1896 he introduced a heavier bull-head rail of over 100Ib/yd , and over 500 miles of line were relaid with this before his death. His last and greatest work was the construction of Heysham harbour in conjunction with G.N. Abernethy. Marshall.

McKie,  Hugh Unsworth
Born at Garstang, Lancashire, on 16 May 1822 was a contemporary of C.E. Spooner. He served his pupilage to William Lamb, an agent and land surveyor to the Duke of Hamilton. Between 1844 and 1850 he engaged in private practice in Lancaster with John Lawson and carried out sewerage and waterworks for Lancaster and elsewhere. During this period he also served as Resident Engineer on part of the North Western railway and harbour works at Morecambe. From 1850 to 1856 he was engaged under Robert Rawlinson [who was to serve as President of the Institute of Civil Engineers from May 1894 to May 1895] on water supply and sewerage works at Alnwick, Carlisle and North Shields, in the course of which he introduced several improvements in the design and method of laying sewers. 21. In 1856 he was appointed City Engineer and Surveyor for Carlisle and held this appointment until 1860. At the same time he was still involved in a private practice partnership, on this occasion with his former pupil James Mansergh who, like Sir Robert Rawlinson, would also later serve as President of the I.C.E., this time from November 1900 to November 1901. Whilst in Carlisle, he designed and carried out, in addition to street improvements and other works, a sewerage irrigation farm for that city and sewerage works for Rothbury and Silloth From 1860 to 1865 he was occupied in the preparation of parliamentary and working drawings for the Conway and Llanrwst Railway subsequently acting as Contractor's Engineer during its construction. Later he superintended, in the same capacity, the setting out of a railway line and tramways in the south of France. It seems likely that the Conway and Llanrwst contract gave McKie a taste for North West Wales and the potential for his services in the area; he therefore established in 1867 a consultancy practice based at Tan-yr-Allt — previously the home of William Madocks — on the outskirts of Tremadoc. In that year he was appointed manager and secretary of the Croesor and Portmadoc Railway and its planned extension to Borth-y-Gest. Being also active as consulting engineer with the Croesor United Slate Company (until 1872) he became in 1869 Resident Engineer for the Hafod-y-Llan tramway to serve the South Snowdon slate workings in anticipation of the General Undertaking being built. During this period he was also responsible for the extension of Portmadoc harbour and sewerage works. Died in Spondon, Derbyshire on 19 January 1907. David Allen and Mike Chrimes in BDCE plus online material.

Mackintosh, Alexander
Second son of the William Mackintosh, of Geddes, Niirnshire (a Surgeon-Major in the Madras Army), was born in Edinburgh on the 8 July 1820, and educated at Edinburgh Academy, and then the High School in that city. He was a pupil of Joseph Cubitt, and was engaged on the surveys of the South Eastern Ballway and afterwards upon the construction of that Iine, acting as Resident Engineer on some sections. In 1844 he was employed under Henry Robertson on surveys for the North Wales Minerals Railway from Saltney to Westminster Colliery at Ruabou, as well as several miueral branches to Minera, the Wheatsheaf, etc. This line formed the original portion of the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway which was opened in 1846 from Chester to Ruabon, and afterwards extended to Shrewsbury. Mackintosh was also engaged on the construction of the line, the principal works being the Dee viaduct over t.he vale of Llangollen, and the viaduct at Chirk. He was likewise engaged upon the Oswestry branch, and upon nearly all of the mineral lines which were made in the mining districts adjoining the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway. After the opening of the latter, he acted as its Resident Engineer, dnring which period he resided at Gresford. On the absorption of the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway by the Great Western Company in 1854, Mackintosh retained charge of the Chester lines, and also became Engineer of the joint stations of Shrewsbury and Chester under the Great Western Company, and was engineer for several extensions, new works, for them Jn that district. In 1860 he was appointed principal engineer for the northern divisiou of the Great Western Railway, taking up his headquarters at Reading, subsequently actiug as principal Resident Engineer under Michael Lane, and at various times residing at Slough, Reading, and Worcester. In 1866 he resigned from the GWR to enter :into partnership with Henry Robertson, then M.P. for Shrewsbury. During the partnership they constructed the Vale of Llangollen Railway, the Bala und.Dolgelly, the Bala and Festiniog, and other branches in North Wales and the Central Wales Railway extension from Knighton to Llandovery: a heavy line to construct, with major viaducts.

Mais, Henry Coathupe
Born in Westbury-on-Trym on 14 May 1827; died at South Yarra in Australia on 26 February 1916. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes and Sally O'Neill Australian Dictionary of Biography. Educated Bishop's College in Bristol and Cambridge University studying classic and mathematics, specializing in engineering. He was articled to William M. Peniston who as an assistant to I.K. Brunel on the Wilts, Somerset & Weymouth Railway. He managed the Broad Street Foundry in Birmingham between 1848 and 1850; then emigrated to Sydney in New South Wales. After attempting to set up in business he became acting engineer to the Sydney Railway, and following the resignation of Francis W. Sheilds became engineer, but not for very long. Following further short-lived appointments in New South Wales he moved to Victoria in 1858 where he became engineer to the contractors Cornish & Bruce who were constructing the Melbourne & Sandhurst (Bendigo) Railway. In 1862 he became General Manager & Engineer of the Melbourne Suburban & Prights Railway. In 1867 he became Engineer-in-chief of Public Works in South Australia and general manager of the Railway Department. Mais argued that the railways should be constructed on the broad gauge, but many lines were built on the 3ft 6in gauge. He also came into conflict with William Thow over the relative merits of British-built and American-built locomotives. In 1887 he assisted the construction of the Silverton Tramway linking South Australia with New South Wales and this once again led to conflicts of interest. In 1898 he set us a consulting engineer in Melbourne and specialised in arbitration in disputres between the governments and railways in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes.

Makinson, Alexander Woodlands
Born at Higher Broughton, Manchester, on 30 July 1822: died in Sweden at Herrestad Karda on the 14 April 1886. Was a spectator of the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Left Manchester Grammar School at an early age, and was apprenticed for five years to the Surveyor to the Clowes estates, and then became the pupil of G.W. Buck, Civil Engineer by whom he was set to work on the Watford section of the London and Birmingham Railway. At the end of his pupilage in 1842, he went through a three years' course in the engineering department at King's College, London, from whence he proceeded to Lowestoft to take charge of the construction of the pier for the Eastern Counties Railway, of which James Samuel, was Chief Engineer, and by whom he was engaged to superintend the survey and construction of the Newmarket and Ely and Hartingdon Railways, and in preparing the plans for a proposed water-supply for London from the Bala lake. About this time Makinson was employed under Sir James Brunlees on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. In 1851, having assisted Sir Goldsworthy Gurney in the ventilation of the Houses of Parliament, he entered into partnership with W. Clark, as sanitary and ventilating engineers, the partnership expiring on Clark receiving the appointment of Engineer to the Municipal Council of Calcutta. Makinson was then occupied for some years in superintending the construction of, and afterwards as Resident Engineer on, the Llanelly and Vale of Towy Railways; he also went to Switzerland in 1854 for a few months under Hemans. In 1859 he was appointed Chief Engineer on the Calcutta and South-Eastern Railway, but was obliged to resign after about a year’s service due to tropical illness being also obliged to decline the appointment of Chief Engineer to the Bombay and Baroda Railway. Soon after his return from India, Makinson proceeded with Samuel and several other engineers to the Isthmus of Panama, to check the surveys of the French engineers for the Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal, projected by the late Emperor Napoleon III.; and at Greytown, perhaps the most unhealthy spot in the world, he contracted malarial fever, which incapacitated him for a long time from actively following the duties of his profession. He was consequently only able to work at intervals during the period from 1860 to 1867 in making surveys for several proposed new lines, such as the Birkenhead Docks and Cheshire Railway, the widening of the Altrincham and Sheffield Junction Railway, the Liverpool Extension Railway, the Manchester Central Station, and the Hooton Branch of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railway. During 1866-70 Makinson acted as Resident Engineer on the Carnarvon and Llanberis Railway, which was subsequently incorporated with the London and North-Western Railway system. In 1871 he was engaged in laying out annd superintending the construction of the Halmstad-Nassjo Railway, in Sweden, 120 miles long, with which he was concerned till 1877, when, owing to the failure of the Swedish Bank, which had purchased the bonds of the line, the work came to a standstill, 80 miles having then been completed and opened for traffic. During the latter years of his life Makinson withdrew from professional work and employed himself in farming in Sweden. Makinson was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 1 February, 1859, and received a Telford Premium for a Paper 'On some of the Internal Disturbing Forces of Locomotive Engines,' read on the 2 December, 1862.

Mallet, Robert
Born in Dublin on 3 June 1810; died London, on 5 November 1881. early education at Bective House in Dublin and entered Trinity College, Dublin, in December 1826, where he studied mathematics and science, graduating BA in 1830. Before joining his father's firm he undertook an extensive tour of engineeering works in Continental Europe. He developed the Victoria Foundry into one of the most important engineering works in Ireland which supplied permanent way materials and cast iron bridges. Innovative pontoon bridge on canal to provide access to Broadstone station (Cox and O'Dwyer Early main line railways conference). The firm supplied bridges and other equiment for improvements to the Shannon Navigation. It supplied lock gates both in Ireland and elsewhere. Mallet encouraged the scientific investigation of the structure of metals. The firm was involved in the creation of the Dublin & Kingstown Railway including the roof at the latter station. It obtained contracts in England, notably for the works at Miles Platting on the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway and the station at Wakefield on that line. In Ireland the stations at Broadstone in Dublin and Galway on the Midland & Great Western Railway were constructed. Station roofs in Belfast, Portadown, Armagh and Cork were supplied. He was made an FRS in 1854 and became a leading expert in seismology. ODNB by G. C. Boase, rev. R. C. Cox. Ron Cox in Chrimes.
Patents (via Woodcroft)
GB 9018/1841 Protecting cast and wrought iron and steel or other metals from corrosion and oxydation; preventing the "fouling" of iron ships, or other ships, or iron buoys. 7 July 1841
GB 11318/1846 Railway-carriages; machinery for working railways;— partly applicable to other carriages; and bearings of other machinery. 30 July 1846.
Cox noted that he patented his so-called buckled plate in 1852 (the first large scale use of this system was in the decking for London Bridge). He patented a vacuum storage device for use in association with atmospheric railways, an improved turntable for locomotives and a system for the transverse loading of private carriages onto railway wagons.

Marchant, Robert Mudge
Born on 23 December 1820, in Chilcompton, Somerset, the son of William Marchant, farmer, and Sarah, née Mudge (1788- 1859). Marchant's family were related to Isambard Kingdom Brunel through their respective mothers. Brunel arranged for him to become a pupil of William Glennie on the Box Tunnel. During over fourteen years' association with Brunel he was the recipient of some of Brunel's fiercest correspondence, and is often used to provide instances of Brunel's poor management skills. After acting as one of Brunel's assistants in a succession of railway schemes he became contractor on the Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhanlpton Railway. He and his navvies were one of the warring factions in the battle of Mickleton Hill (Backtrack, 2012, 26, 34) when Brunel drove Marchant's workforce off site using (Sir) Morton Peto's navvies. Marchant and his partner Williams had stopped work when they were owed £30,000, effectively bankrupted. They had to wait for compensation until October 1852 when Sir William Cubitt and Robert Stephenson gave judgement. In 1852 he went to Brazil and eventually surveyed railways there. In 1860 he went to Victoria, Australla, as a railway surveyor for three years. He then went to Southland Province, New Zealand, as Engineer for Southland Railways in early 1863, also becoming Invercargill Town Board's Engineer. Work soon began on the railway berween Invercargill and Bluff. The Province was trying to build on its easier transport links with the goldfields compared with Dunedin. He soon came under criticism for the shoddy work of the contractors and his decision to use wooden rails. He defended this on the grounds that the pressure to open the line berween Invercargill and Markarena left him with little alternative. Once the Oreti Railways' first eight miles were opened he became its Manager. Within fourteen months the wooden track was worn out, and the Province embarrassed. The railway remained until, on Thomas Paterson's advice, iron rails were laid four years later. Marchant resigned on 30 April 1866, after lengthy arguments and arbitration over money owed to him. He settled for £1,700. In June 1866 he was in Wellington supporting the Wairarapa Railway as engineer for a syndicate to build a line from Pipitea Point to Upper Hull, on either a guaranteed interest basis or land grant. The following year he supported the standard gauge for permanent railway structures, but narrow gauge lines to open up the working in the short term. He left New Zealand soon after and was in England by 1869. He took out a permanent way patent (1170) in 1868. He was a member of the Agapemonite Sect (Chrimes seems to render incorrect spelling) and died on 6 March 1902 in Tottenham (the sect had a chucrh in upper Clapton and was based in Somerset). Mike Chrimes in Chrimes

Margary, Peter John
Born Kensington, London, on 2 June 1820; died London 29 April 1896.(according to Marshall and NRM, but on 29 August 1896 according to Brian George in Chrimes).  In 1838 articled to William Gravatt, then chief assistant on the Bristol & Exeter Railway under BruneI. He later assisted BruneI with the atmospheric system on the South Devon Railway. On the death of Brunei in 1859 M was appointed chief engineer of the South Devon Railway. He carried out the extension from Tavistock to Launceston and the branches to Moreton Hampstead, Ashburton and St Ives. In 1868 appointed chief engineer to the Cornwall Railway. On its amalgamation with the GWR in 1876 Margary became resident engineer of the Westarn division of the GWR including the GWR docks at Plymouth which he extended in 1878-81. He also reconstructed the Moorswater and St Pinnock viaducts on the Cornwall Railway. He retired at the end of 1891. Became MICE 31 January1860. NRM holds his Diaries.

Marsh, Thomas Edward Milles
Born at Biddestone in Wiltshire on 3 April 1818 and was apprenticed to George E. Frere, Resident Engineer to Brunel on the western division of the Great Western Railway. Whilst working as an assistant engineer under Frere he was in charge of the section between Twerton Tunnel and Cross Toll Gate Bridge when the remains of a Roman villa were revealed. The remains of the tessellated pavement were moved to Bristol City Museums. He worked briefly on a survey for the Caledonian Railway and in 1844 he became Chief Engineer of the Monmouthshire Canal Navigation Co. when it was changing its name to the Monmouthshire Railway & Canal Co. He oversaw the reconstruction of the former tramroad between Pontypool and Blaenavon. When this was abandoned in 1846 he returned to work for Brunel as chief assistant. After Brunel's death in 1859 he set up a consultancy in Bristol. Permanent way work was inspected on railways in Canada, South America, India and Mauritius for Hawkshaw. He became Engineer for the Sittingbourne & Sheerness Railway in 1860 and was responsible for constructing Queenborough Pier. He had a lifelong interest in archaeology. He died in Bath on 19 December 1907. R, Angus Buchanan in Chrimes.

Mathew, Francis
Born at Rock View House, County Tipperary in 1828. Died in England on 30 September 1885. Pupil of Joseph Burke, an engineer employed by Sir John Macneill. He worked on The Dublin & Enniskillen Railway and the Waterford & Kilkenny Railway, and for six years he was employed by William Dargan when he worked on the Limerick & Foynes and Limerick & Ennis Railways and was Manager-in-chief of the Cork Tunnel works completed in 1857. In January 1858 he moved to the Bombay Baroda & Central India Railway and in May 1864 he was promoted to Chief Resident Engineer. He was active in Bombay. M. Kaye Kerr and Ian J. Kerr in Chrimes.

Matheson, E.G.G.
Died in December 1932, at the relatively early age of 52,  was for many years of the Engineers’ Department of the Great Western Railway. Received his general education at Blairgowie School and Perth Academy; was followed by practical training under James Ritchie, of Perth. In 1899, he joined the staff of Sir R. McAlpine and Sons, and was engaged as an assistant on the construction of the Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway. He subsequently acted as contractor’s engineer on the construction of the Prince’s Dock Railway, Glasgow. He joined a railway staff in 1901, being appointed assistant to the resident engineer on the Wemyss Bay Railway widening, of the Caledonian Railway. Afterwards he was engaged on the preparation of Parliamentary plans, &c., but in 1905 transferred to the Great Western Railway, to act as engineering assistant to W.Y. Armstrong in connection with new construction in South Wales. Subsequently, he acted as assistant resident engineer on the Aynho and Ashendon line and on the construction of the Snow Hill station, Birmingham. The years 1915-19 were spent with Royal Engineer units, three of them being passed in France, on railway-construction work, Matheson having the rank of major and being twice mentioned in dispatches. In this connection he was awarded the O.B.E. After the war he was resident engineer for deviation and other works on the Great Western Railway, in Devon and Cornwall, until 1922, when he was appointed assistant divisional engineer at Bristol. In 1924, he was promoted to divisional engineer at Bristol, and in 1926, was transferred to Paddington as assistant engineer. Three years later he was advanced to assistant chief engineer. Matheson was made an associate-member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1907, and a full member in 1929.Graces Guide. Paper on GWR activity.

Mathieson, Kenneth Jr
Born in Hopehill, Glasgow in 1817; died Edinburgh 21 November 1897. Educated at Edinburgh Academy. Trained as a mason under his father. Surveyor on Chester & Holyhead Railway when he worked for the Resident Engineer, Alexander MacKenzie Ross. He was  engineer of the Bridport Railway. He promoted the Dunfermline & Queensferry Railway when he was a town councillor in Dunfermline. P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes.

Meakin, George
Born in either Manchester or Birkenhead in about 1808. He died at work on 23 April 1873 having been run down by one of his own locomotives whilst widening the LNWR main line near Watford Junction. He was a stonemason who worked with Thomas Brassey for nine years latterly as a junior partner. He then set up as a contractor starting with a tunnelling contract. He constructed the Nethertoon canal tunnel. His skill as a stonemason was shown on the viaduct on the Inverness & Ross-shire Railway over the River Conon is built on a 45° skew. Joseph Mitchell, the Engineer, was greatly impressed. P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes,

Medley, Julius George
Born on 19 July 1829 and educated at the East India Company's seminary at Addiscombe. He arrived in India in March 1849 as a member of the Bengal Engineers and worked on the Grand Trunk Road, but this was interrupted by the Indian Mutiny where his service during the seige of Delhi was recognised as being outstanding. He participated in several further seiges including that at Lucknow. At the end of the Mutiny he was appointed Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways in Lahore. He was then in 1860 appointed Principal of the Civil Engineering College, Calcutta, but is probably better noted as an educator at Thomason College, Roorkee where he compiled the Roorkee Treatise on Civil Engineering (1866-7) and started Professional Papers on Indian Engineering in 1864.. During 1872-3 he lectured Royal Engineers studying at Chatham and this led to India and Indian Engineering (1873). He then briefly toured the USA and Canada. On return to India he was Superintending Engineer and then Consulting Engineer for Guaranteed Railways. He was promoted Colonel in 1881 and Major-general in 1884. In 1884 he wrote Railways in Upper India. His period in office coincided with a major growth of the Indian railway network and the Afghan War led him to urge the construction of further railways in the frontier region.  He died in Port Said on the P&O vessel Ravenna bound for England on 28 August 1884. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes.

Meek, Sturges
Born on 9 April 1816 at Dunstall, Staffordshire. On leaving school he obtained a pupilage under George and Robert Stephenson, and from 1833 assisted on the London & Birmingham Railway project. On completion of his apprenticeship, Meek assisted with the construction of the Great North of England Railway, based at Newton-on-Ouse, north of York. In early 1841, Joseph Locke took him on as an assistant to George Neumann for the construction of the northern section of the Paris-Rouen Railway. In 1844 Meek assisted Locke with surveys for the London & York Railway scheme, but this was terminated later in the year following a dispute between Locke and the railway's directors. Shortly afterwards Meek went with Locke to Holland to assess the requirements for the proposed Dutch-Rhenish Railway. In 1845, he assisted Locke with laying out and preparing Parliamentary plans, firstly for extensions to the London & South Western Railway, and subsequendy for an abortive scheme for a railway between Derby and Crewe. In 1846 Locke and his partner John Errington appointed Meek as Resident Engineer of the Liverpool, Ormskirk & Preston Railway, which was absorbed into the East Lancashire Railway later that year. The line's construction was completed in 1849, but Meek remained with the railway assisting the Chief Engineer, John S. Perring.
In 1853 Meek was appointed as Resident (Chief) Engineer of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway. In that latter capacity he succeeded (Sir) John Hawkshaw, who in turn became the railway's Consulting Engineer. One of his early tasks was to oversee the construction of the Liverpool North Docks branch, for which he had prepared plans in 1848. The branch included the Regent Road vertical lifting bridge. Hawkshaw and Meek remained as Consulting and Resident Engineers for the next 32 years until 1885. Meek was then retained as the railway's Consulting Engineer until his death in 1888. During this long tenure, he oversaw the line's expansion with many additional route-miles through several of the Pennine's most difficult routes. The routes included several major structures, including the 13-arch Mytholmbridge and 22-arch Denby Dale masonry viaducts, which were replacements for original timber structures. Meek was noted for his total integrity and enjoyed universal confidence as an arbitrator. He died, aged 71, after a long illness, on 23 February 1888 at Dunstall Lodge, Kensington, so recalling his birthplace in Staffordshire. He was buried in the family vault in Prestwich. Michael R. Bailey and John Marshall in Chrimes. Also Marshall.

Meiggs, Henry
Born Catsklll, Green County, New York State on 7 July 1811; died near Lima, Peru on 30 September 1877. Engineer and contractor, responsible for possibly the most outstanding piece of railway engineering in the world, the Peru Central (Marshall). He had an astute business sense, ability to select the right men to serve under him, and he was a skilled mathematician. Achieved his first success as a timber merchant in Boston (USA), moving to New York in 1835. Here he made a large fortune, only to lose it all in the financial panic of 1837. However, in another year he was the owner of a large timber yard in Williamsburg, becoming insolvent again in 1842. He then returned to New York where he took a keen interest in the establishment of musical activities. The discovery of gold in California lured him away from New York for ever. He left with a cargo of timber which he sailed round Cape Horn and in July 1849 sold in San Francisco at a profit of $50,000. There followed a period of speculative adventures until another financial crisis in 1854 crippled him once more. His unscrupulous practices now showed themselves and by means of forgeries he acquired $900,000. He immediately sailed to Chile to avoid capture. It was here he began his railway activities, constructing the Santiago Railway at a profit of $1,320,000. After living a princely life in Chile, he removed to Peru in 1867 and began the Oroya Railway from Lima to Oroya in the Andes, later the Peru Central Railway, climbing to 15,688ft in little over 100 miles, the highest Railway in the world. The daring conception of the Railway and the immensity of the problems in its construction must have imposed a severe strain for in 1875 he suffered a paralytic stroke from which he never fully recovered. He died before the Railway had reached its summit, but the rest of the route was fully worked out. Apart from this he completed all his Railway contracts ahead of time. To the end, however, he was unscrupulous, his speculations even injuring the Peruvian currency. At the same time, possibly for the benefit of his own conscience, he showed great generosity towards charitable causes, even anonymously paying the gambling debts of men in his employment. He was always considerate of the men under him and was well liked by them, and he was the first big contractor in North or South America to treat the imported Chinese coolies as humans. See also Locomotive Mag., 1935, 41, 184.

Meik family
Thomas Meik:
Born in Duddingston, Edinburgh on 20 January 20 1812; died in Edinburgh on 22 April 1896 leaving his business in the hands of his sons, Patrick and Charles. After attending the University of Edinburgh, he was apprenticed to John Steedman, an engineer and contractor who was working in Glasgow on the Hutcheson Bridge (designed by Robert Stevenson). His first long-term post was as assistant engineer to William Chadwell Mylne of the New River Company, London. In 1845 Meik was appointed engineer to the River Wear Commission and in 1859, the commission took over the construction of the Hendon Dock on the south side of the Wear, and Meik was responsible for the entire works. He was also consulting engineer to Blyth Harbour from 1862. In 1871, Meik engineered the Hylton, Southwick and Monkwearmouth Railway to transport coal to the port at Sunderland. The railway was subsequently acquired by the North Eastern Railway. In Scotland he was engineer for the Eyemouth Railway, an extension to the Forfar to Brechin line, the Newburgh and North Fife Railway and the East Fife Central Railway.

Charles  Scott Meik
Born in Bishopwearmouth in 1855; died in London on 5 July 1923. Apprenticed to Thomas Bouch, but Bouch's career was ruined by the Tay Bridge disaster on 28 December 1879 and as Bouch's assistant, Meik gave evidence before the Committee of Inquiry although it was clear he had no responsibility for the failed design. He soon left for Japan, where he designed harbours for the government, and therefore was not tarnished by Bouch's downfall. In 1894, he returned to Britain to work with his brother Patrick in the firm their father had started in 1868. The pair built docks and a railway at Port Talbot in Wales (1897) to export coal, another coal port at Seaham (1905) and designed docks in Burma, India and Mozambique. In Scotland, their most notable contributions were the hydro-electric power schemes at Kinlochleven (1905-09) and Lochaber (1924-44), but died before construction of the latter began, leaving the task in the hands of his partner William Halcrow. Meik is remembered on the family memorial in Duddingston Kirkyard. The family firm continues as the Halcrow Group.

Patrick Walter Meik
Born in Bishopwearmouth. Patrick went to work for his father and worked on Meik's harbours at Burntisland and Bo'ness on the river Forth in Scotland before being asked by Sir Benjamin Baker to be resident engineer (1882–1885) on the foundations and piers of the Forth Bridge (designed by Baker and Sir John Fowler). After this project, he moved to London to set up his own engineering practice. In 1894 he joined with his brother to work jointly. Engineers for 1890s Kinlochleven Aluminium hydroelectric plant and smelter. R.A.S. Hennessey. Kinlochleven. Backtrack, 2014, 28. 273. Graces Guide adds a great deal deal about Patrick born in Sunderland in 1851, father Thomas also a civil engineer. Died in London on 12 July 1910. Associated with many dock works including at Silloth, Ayr and Burntisland; with many railways: branches to Eyemouth, Central Fife and Gifford & Garvald and Forfar & Brechin. A major cotract was for the Port Talbot Docks & Railway. There was also work on the piers for the Forth Bridge. He died in London on 13 July 1910 aged 59. .

Melville, William
Born on 18 Seoptember 1850 in Dunoon; died in Bearsden on 21 October 1920. He was educated at the James Watt Technical School in Edinburgh. Following a period as a carpenter's assistant he got a job in the locomotive works of the North British Railway. For five years he was a pupil of James Bell, Chief Engineer. Melville became assistant engineer on the Western Section under James Carswell. Worked on Craigendoran Railway and Pier and on the Cowlairs Loop. In 1881 he moved to the Caledonian Railway as Chief Assistant to George Grahan. Work included improvements at Glasgow Central and at Eglinton Street. In 1891 Melville became Engineer-in-Chief Glasgow & South Western Railway: responsible for bridges and other works on Glasgow Union Railway; improvements  to the permanent way, especially on the Ayrshire & Wigtonshire Railway. Improved locomotive sheds were constructed at Carlisle, Ardrossan and Corkerhill: at the last better housing was also installed for the workers. Retired 31 October 1916; died 21 October 1920. Chrimes in BDCE3, also involved with Maidens & Dunure Light Railway: (for which see McConnell and Rankin).

Meredith, W.L.
Midland Railway superintendent of way & works at Gloucester. Also founder of Institution of Permanent Way Inspectors. Andrew Dow Railway p. 120

Miles, Thomas William
Eldest son of William Miles of Callinafercy, Co. Kerry, Ireland was born on 26 September 1840. In 1860 he was apprenticed to William Barrington of Limerick for three years. After about twelve months in the office, he obtained practical experience on the extension of the Waterford and Limerick Railway from Castle Connel to Killaloe, and on the Rathkeale and Newcastle Junction line, under F.B. Walker, whom he succeeded as Resident Engineer on the latter. He was also in charge, under Barrington, of the Clodiagh River drainage district in Co. Waterford, of the Mulkear River drainage district in Co. Tipperary, and of the surveys for the Birdhill and Nenagh and the Limerick and Kerry lines. In 1868 Mr. Miles entered the service of the Public Works Department of the Government of India as an Assistant Engineer under covenant for five years, at the end of which time he was placed on the permanent establishment where he worked on roads and irrigation projects using local labour. Ill health forced his return to the United Kingdom where he died in London on 3 February 1895. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs obituary.

Milne, John
Born in  Liverpool on 30 December 1850; died on 31 July 1913 from Bright's disease. From 1867 he studiied Applied Sciences at King's College London andd from 1870-1872 at the Royal School of Mines. In 1873/4 he surveyed Newfoundland and in 1875 accepted a Professorship in Geology & Mining at the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokio. Here he studied seismology and designed instruments to measure earthquakes and the effect of locomotives upon bridges (see Proc. Instn Civil Engrs. Paper 2468) and designed aseismic buildings. In 1892 he returned to Britain and lived at Shide House on the  Isle of Wight. Biography by Mike Chrimes in BCDE3.  

Morrison, Gabriel James
Born London on 1 November 1840; died London, 11 February 1905. Studied at Glasgow University. Apprenticed for five years with Robson, Forman & McCall, Glasgow. Worked under Daniel Gooch on the second Atlantic cable. For 1½ years he was resident engineer of the Glasgow & Milngavie Railway. In 1863 he left Glasgow and joined the staff of James Brunlees with whom he remained eleven years. acting as resident engineer on the Cleveland Railway, Lynn dock, and Clifton Extension Railway, Bristol. He was also engaged on various docks. the Central Uruguay and Honduras Railways, the Solway Junction Railway, the Lynn & Sutton and Spalding & Bourne lines. On completion of the Clifton Extension Railway he began his own practice in Westminster. but soon afterwards went to China where he laid down the first railway there. between Shanghai and Woosung which opened on 1 July  1876. It aroused suspicions, was bought by the Chinese government, torn up and dumped on Formosa. Morrison then established himself as a civil engineer in Shanghai. In 1885 he entered into partnership with F.M. Cratton and they carried out important works in China.  Returned to London in 1902 and was associated with Sir John Wolfe Barry as consulting engineer of the Shanghai-Nanking Railway. Awarded the James Watt Medal in 1876. John Marshall. Paper on transition curves: Min. Proc. Cic. Engrs., 1901, 146, 202-6 (Paper 3283) and on tunnel ventilation, 1874, 44, 18-49 (Paper 1448).

Moseley, Henry
Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme on 9 July 1801; died Olveston, Gloucestershire on 20 January 1872. He was educated at Newcastle Grammar School, Abbeville, the naval school in Portsmouth and St. John's College in Cambridge. He was ordained as an Anglican priest and was also a brilliant mathematician who contributed to studies on the bending of beams in bridges. Chrimes in Chrimes. See also Horne Backtrack, 2001, 15, 148.

Mott, Basil
Born Leicester on 16 September 1859; died  Hampstead on 7 September 1938. Educated at Leicester grammar school, the International College at Isleworth, and at Solothurn in Switzerland. From 1876 to 1879 student at the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, where awarded Murchison medal. After pupillage at Whitwick colliery, Leicestershire, and at Sheffield, Mott spent three years as engineer to the Neston Colliery Company, Cheshire, in charge of machinery and underground haulage; and gained experience in tunnelling. In 1883 James Henry Greathead recruited Mott to assist in the construction of the first deep-level tube, the City and Southwark Railway Company, of which his uncle, Charles Grey Mott, was chairman. The line was subsequently known as the City and South London Railway. From 1886 Mott served as assistant engineer, pioneering the use of the Greathead shield and employing special techniques, including the use of low pressure compressed air, to overcome local problems of the water-bearing ground. On completion of tunnelling in 1887, Mott, as resident engineer, supervised the equipping and initial operation of the railway, which was originally intended for cable traction, but changed to electric traction.
Following the death of Greathead in 1896, Mott entered into partnership with Sir Benjamin Baker and shared responsibility for the design and construction of the second deep-level tube, the Central London Railway which opened in 1900. This line first introduced acceleration and deceleration gradients adjacent to stations, with appreciable savings in traction power. After Baker's death in 1907, Mott took into partnership David Hay and David Anderson, serving as senior partner of the firm of consulting engineers until his own death in 1938. In 1932, Mott, Hay, and Anderson were appointed as joint consultants (with Sir Harley Dalrymple-Hay in association with William Halcrow) to the London Passenger Transport Board. Following a visit to the United States, Mott was responsible for the introduction of escalators to Britain, after exhibiting a working escalator which was subsequently built into Earls Court Station. Much work followed for the London underground railways.
Meanwhile, Mott was becoming prominent in bridge design, construction, and reconstruction. In 1906, he was associated with Baker with planning the widening of Blackfriars Bridge in London and subsequently responsible for execution of the work. He was responsible for the new Southwark Bridge, started in 1913 then stopped for the duration of the First World War and completed in 1921. He was also concerned with the widening of Kingston Bridge on the River Thames, the construction of Queensferry Bridge, a lifting bascule bridge, at Chester, the high-level road bridge at Newcastle upon Tyne, Wearmouth Bridge at Sunderland, and the Tees Bridge at Middlesbrough, the first vertical lift bridge in Britain.
After several years of controversy between the relative merits of bridge or tunnel, Mott, a strong advocate for a tunnel, had primary responsibility for the Mersey Tunnel, at the time the largest sub-aqueous tunnel in the world, which was constructed between 1925 and 1934. Extensive pioneering studies of ventilating a tunnel for petrol driven vehicles enlisted the assistance of J.S. Haldane. Mott was consulted by government and reported on many schemes, including the proposed Charing Cross Bridge, road bridges across the rivers Forth and Tay, and the channel tunnel. He was a member of the Severn barrage committee and chairman of the restoration works committee of engineers and architects for the preservation of the fabric of St Paul's Cathedral. Created a Baronet in 1930. Became Fellow of Royal Society in 1932. Based on ODNB entry by Alan Muir Wood which includes a portrait. Serious omission from Taylor and from Marshall (and from Steamindex until chance find of obituary in Transactions of the Newcomen Society). Excellent obituary freely available online from Institution of Civil Engineers.

Mowat, Magnus
Born on 10 November 1875 in Aberdeenshire. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School then Blackheath High School in London. He then studied Engineering at King's College, London. He served an apprenticeship at the North British Railway Works at Cowlairs. His first employment as an Engineer was as assistant in building the Leicester section for the Great Central Railway. From 1899 to 1901 he was engineer to the Grand Indian Peninsular Railway. In 1901 he joined Robert McAlpine & Son as engineer for the new Partick drainage system. In 1905 he joined Millwall Dock Company later being promoted to Chief Engineer and General Manager of the company. He then joined the London Port Authority. He had been a senior officer in the Territorial Army's formation in 1909 and during WW1 he served as a senior commander in the Royal Engineers then was appointed Commandant of the School of Heavy Bridging and Commands Road Director at the War office. In 1919 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by King George V. In October 1920 he replaced Edgar Worthington as Secretary of the Institutionof Mechanical Engineers. In 1934 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He died at Ebor House in East Sheen south-west of London on 19 January 1953. He was unmarried and had no children.

Moylan, William Morgan
Born in Bombay in 1861: died on 28 July 1924, on board the SS Delta, whilst on his way home from India. Educated at Stonyhurst College. His early rngineering training was obtained in the works of Messrs. Hick, Hargreaves and Co., Ltd., Soho Iron Works, Bolton, and he afterwards joined the P. and O. Steam Navigation Co., and spent two years, until 1885, in the engine-room of the SS. Shannon. From 1885 to 1887 he was assistant to the Government Inspector of Boilers, Bombay, and in the latter year he passed his engineer’s examination first-class. Later on he superintended the erection of engineering factories at Kandeish, and carried out the installation of heavy machinery at Parli, Hyderabad, the task involving transport over 150 miles of difficult country. He then spent two years in charge of engines and tunnels for the Tansa Water Works, Bombay; and subsequently hr devoted himself largely to this class of work. He was manager of works for Messrs. Forster and Co. in the construction of the Goilkora tunnel on the Bengal-Napgur Railway, and from 1893 to 1898 he was engaged in the cutting of tunnels on the hill sections of the Assam-Bengal Railway, being in sole charge up to May 1895. Later on, as a member of the firm of Messrs. Moylan and Scott, he was engaged in 1903-6 on the construction of what is called the Grand Chord line, East India Railway, work involving the construction of several tunnels and bridges ; and in 1906 the Darrah Viaduct on the Nagda-Muttra State Railway engaged his attention. followed in 1908 by the erection of the Kalismid bridge with its approaches and heavy guide bunds. Subsequently, continuing his railway construction work, the years 1909-11 saw him at work in the hill sections of the Itarsi-Nagpur Railway, his labours involving the construction of five tunnels and five miles of heavy earthwork, including a bank across the Salband Gorge which was 150 feet high at its deepest point and was considered one of the largest.examples of its kind in India. Tunnel work on the Southern Shan States Railway followed in 1912, and the following years saw the construction of the Kasara tunnel and much heavy earthwork on the Grent Indian Peninsula Railway, with further work of similar heavy character on the Itarsi-Nagpur Railway. Further activities included the erectlion of an acetone factory at Nasik during the War years 1917-18, the repair of the great Moghat dam in 1919, and the making of many tunnels on the Khyber Railway in 1931. Mr. Moylan spent about forty years in India, and his name will be associated with some of the heaviest tunnelling and embankment work connected with the railways of that country. He became an Associate Member of this Institution in 1893 and was admitted as full Member in 1901 IMechE obituary

Murgatroyd, S.L.
Last Permanent Way Engineer of the Great Central Railway (Dawn Smith). Vice President Permanent Way Institution. President Retired Railway Officers' Association in 1938

Surnames beginning "N"

Neate, Charles
Born in London in October 1821 and died, presumably in London on 29 May 1911, He attended King's College School and King's College and was then a pupil in the offices of Rendel and Beardmore. Much of his work was in Brazil including the Dom Pedro II Railway, but there were many further Brazilian railways in which he was involved. The Victoria Bridge in Stockton (a road crossing of the Tees) is one of his major works. Chrimes in Chrimes.

Neville, Alfred Henry
Son of Charles Neville: died in 1861. In 1838 took out two French patents: one was for silk processing, the other for bridge construction: 11,201. A British equivalent (7975) was obtained in 1839. The design was adopted on road bridges in France and in Belgium on the railway between Charleroi and Erquelines in several crossings of the Sambre. At about this time Warren took out his patent for the Warren truss girder which tends to be better known than the similar Neville design which was adopted more widely in Austria and adjacent areas. Chrimes in Chrimes.

Nicolson, John Thomas
Born 3 June 1860, died in Manchester on 27 May 1913. Educated at Edinburgh University, he received his practical training at the works of Messrs. R. and W. Hawthorn, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Having gained a Whitworth Scholarship and other distinctions, he studied under Professor Martens at Berlin and was subsequently appointed Demonstrator in Applied Mechanics at Cambridge University. In 1891 appointed to Chair of Mechanical Engineering at McGill Uoiversity, Montreal. In 1899 he became Professor of Mechanical Engineering in Manchester University and held that position until his death. He received the Watt Medal and a Telford premium for his joint Paper with Professor Callendar on Condensation of Steam, and latterly he took special interest in the subject of internal-combustion engines. ICE obituary

Nowell family
Important family of civil engineering contractors based in Dewsbury. Important contracts for visducts and tunnels on the London & Birmingham Railway and Richmond Hill tunnel on Leeds & Selby Railway, but his skills were developed in the canal age, notably on the Macclefield Canal and in building bridges (as over the Ouse at York) and church building. See Chrimes in Skelton and Charlton The first locomotive engineers who refers to Nowell & Co of Sunderland (millwrights) who may have been involved in constructing a locomotive for Grimshaw of Fatfield Colliery

Nuttall, Edmund
Born in Trafford Park in 1870 into Nuttall famiy firm of public works contractors and died suddenly at this home in Bowden, Manchester in 1923. The company built the Liver Building completed in 1911 and was later involved in projects to build the Queensway Tunnel under the Mersey completed in 1932, the Dartford Tunnel completed in 1963, the Tyne Tunnel completed in 1967, the Kingsway Tunnel completed in 1971, the Liverpool Merseyrail Underground Loop Railway, now called Wirral Line, 1972-78, opened by HM The Queen, (The Loop was one of the most challenging contracts ever on account of major labour unrest and tight Liverpool city centre working), the Medway Tunnel completed in 1998, High Speed 1 completed in 2007 and the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway completed in 2011. Nuttall were also involved in several projects for the 2012 Summer Olympics including, soil remediation and civils works in the South of the Park. The company is also involved in the construction of the Crossrail railway line in the UK. Chessington branch Archive, 2019 (103), 12

Oldham, Elisha [Wright]
Came from Warwickshire: born in 1792 and died in 1879. Brian Lewis. The Oldham family of railway contractors (J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc. 2015, 38, 235) records that Elisha Wright Oldham held Patent: GB 8837/1841 Construction of turn-tables to be used on railways. 8 February 1841 (Woodcroft gives date shown; Lewis who reproduces diagrams from Patent quotes 5 August 1841, presumably publication date, but Woodcroft does not include "Wright").

Oldham, Henry
Brian Lewis. The Oldham family of railway contractors (J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc. 2015, 38, 235) records that was Thmas's eldest son and was involved in disputes with Brunel over a contract near Bathampton on the main line and subsequently with the OWWR where Brunel was called in to arbitrate.  

Oldham, John Bingham
Brian Lewis. The Oldham family of railway contractors (J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc. 2015, 38, 235) records that was Elisha Wright Oldham's youngest son and worked with him on the E&WJR and GNR contracts. He spent a short time in Worcester Gaol for debt in 1866/7 and died in Camberwell in 1899.

Oldham, Thomas William{s)
Brian Lewis. The Oldham family of railway contractors (J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc. 2015, 38, 235)

Oliver, Robert Stewart
Born on 8 July 1849; .died 1900. Son of Andrew Oliver, a well-known agriculturist in Stratherrick. Served an apprenticeship of four years with William Paterson, engineer and land surveyor, of Inverness. In 1871 he joined the Highland Railway Company, on which he worked for the greater part of his life. Under the late Murdoch Paterson he was employed on the surveys for the Sutherland and Caithness Railway, and acted as Resident Engineer on the construction of that line..

Otway, James Hastings
Born Belfast on 8 May 1848, died Bournemouth on 24 March 1923. He was youngest of three sons of John Hastings Orway, Recorder of Belfast and County Court Judge for Antrim, and Mary Hill of Graigne, County Cork. Jarnes was educated privately and entered Trinity College Dublin in July 1864. He obtained a BA degree from the University of Dublin in 1868 and a Licence in Civil Engineering. He then served a pupilage for one year with Alexander McDonnell, locomotive engineer at the Inchicore works of the Great Southern & Western Railway. For the next two years Orway worked for John Bower, on the preparation of plans for drainage and other works. Between 1870 and 1873, Otway was employed, along with Simon Fraser and others, as an assistant engineer on the Dublin main drainage working under Parke Neville. Joseph William Bazalgette being the consultant. Moving to Waterford in 1874, Otway acted for the contractors, Stanford & Falkiner during the construction of the Lismore to Dungarvan section of the Waterford, Dungarvan & Lismore Railway (WD&LR) and for about fifteen months was similarly employed as engineer-in-charge during the construction of the Waterford waterworks. In September 1877, he was appointed engineer of the Waterford & Tramore Railway and, in August 1878, engineer, and in addition, from 1 January 1880, locomotive superintendent, of the WD&LR. In the same year he became engineer to the Waterford Harbour Board, a position that he held until 1899. From 1 July 1898, the GS&WR took over the operanon of the WD&LR and Otway was appointed Assistant Engineer of the GS&WR with responsibility for their lines in the south-east of the country, but on 1 June 1900 was appointed jointly with Sir Benjamin Baker for the construction of the Rosslare & Waterford Railway and as Engineer for the Rosslare Harbour works in succession to Kennert Bayley. The works at Rosslare consisted of new jetty connected to the shore by an eleven-span iron railway viaduct. A new line of railway was constructed to connect the port with Waterford, mcluding Ireland's longest rail bridge across water over the River Barrow near Campile in County Wexford. He was elected MlnstCE 6 February 1883. Otway resigned from the GS&WR on 31 December 1907 and went to live in Bournemouth. Ron Cox BCDE3

Overton, George
Born  1774 in Glamorgan, Baptised January 1775, in Parish of Burrington, North Herefordshire; died 1827, Llanddetty, near Talybont-on-Usk, and buried 7 February at Llanddetty church. Engineer of iron tramroads mainly in South Wales, but also performed the initial survey of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. The Maerthyr Tramroad and the the Rumney Railway were both part of his work and power was provided by horses. Bassaleg Viaduct is still extant. Vallance Railway enthusiast's bedside book plus material off Internet.

Owen, William George (and sons)
Born in Caernarfon in 1810, the son of a linen draper, but other details about his family are unknown. He was educated at Malpas School, Cheshire, and in 1828 was articled to George Hennet, civil engineer and contractor, and assisted in early railway surveys. Through the 'strong recommendation' of Joseph Bennett, the Chief Clerk for Isambard K. Brunel, he was appointed as a Sub-Assistant Engineer on the Great Western Railway in 1836, at a salary of £150. By 1845, four years after the opening of the line to Bristol, Owen was assisting John Hammond, Brunel's Chief Assistant Engineer. His duties included responsibility for Box Tunnel. He worked continuously for Brunel until 1859, being engaged with increasing responsibility on the Great Western, Bristol & Exeter and South Wales lines. He was latterly Resident Engineer on tile South Wales Railway and, on Brunel's death in 1859, was appointed that company's Chief Engineer. On its amalgamation with the Great Western Railway in 1863, he remained as Engineer for the South Wales routes, extending his responsibilities the following year to include also part of the former West Midland Railway system. Owen became Chief Engineer of me whole GWR on the death of Michael Lane in 1868 and continued in this post until 1885. Just before his appointment, he assisted with trials for steel rails, tile success of which led to his recommendation for their general use on tile railway. By 1878, four-fifths of the Great Westem main lines were fitted with steel rails. He was responsible for over 50 miles of new routes, but his main activity during his long tenure of office was the conversion of nearly 900 miles of broad gauge track to mixed or standard gauge, as the railway pursued a policy of standardisation with that of other railways. He resigned from his position in March 1885 through ill health and died shortly afterwards. Owen was elected MlnstCE in December 1860, and, although he participated in discussions at the lnstitution from time to time, there is no obituary notice in its Proceedings. Owen and his wife, Amelia, had at least two sons and a daughter, and lived in Gloucester Gardens, London. R. Angus Buchanan in Chrimes.

Owen, William Lancaster
Born Bath on 8 November 1843; died London 28 November 1911. One of William George Owen's sons, was often known as Lancaster Owen to avoid confusion with his father, was also a civil engineer. He joined the South Wales and later tile GWR under his father, and also spent two years as a mechanical engineer under Daniel Gooch. He then 1864-1866, as Engineer on the contracts of Rennie, Logan & Matthews before becoming a District Engineer on the GWR with responsibility for 200 miles of line. His duties included conversion of broad gauge lines to standard gauge on the Oxford, Birmingham and Wolverhampron route between 1868 and 1870. For the gauge conversion of the South Wales line from 1871, he was based in Gloucester, and supervised the conversion as far as Cardiff. In an article in the Railway Magazine in 1898 he described in detail how this work was undertaken. In 1872 he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Monrnouthshire Railway & Canal Co., but that concern was taken over by the GWR in 1875. He was subsequently appointed as GWR Engineer for New Works, reporting to his father. On W.G. Owen's resignation from the GWR in 1885, no Chief Civil Engineer was appointed, but Lancaster Owen retained his position as New Works Engineer. During his term of office, the Severn Tunnel was constructed under the direction of Sir John Hawkshaw and Charles Richardson, whilst Owen supervised tile construction of the rail link through the tunnel, Sir John Fowler was consulted for some schemes in the late 1880s, plans being jointly attributed with Owen. In 1890 at tile age of 47, Owen resigned from his position, but the circumstances are not known. He may have felt aggrieved at not being made Chief Engineer, as, when writing in the Railway Magazine, he first allowed the attribution 'Chief Engineer (Retired), Great Western Railway'. The railway may have taken issue with this as me second part of the article referred to him as 'Chief Constructive Engineer (Retired), Great Western Railway. Owen was elected MlnstCE in 1882. He manied Helen Evans in Newport, Monmouthshire, in 1871 and they had at least one son. In 1881 they were resident in Gloucester Gardens, London, across the road from his father.

Owen, George Wells
Another son of was William George Owen (it is not known when he was born, but he died in 1901), served a three-year pupilage under his father. He spent the years 1860-1865 as an assistant engineer in India, engaged on roads and barracks, a dam and river training works, but also in sole charge: of the search for coal in the Himalayas. For one year also he was Civil Divisional Engineer of the Mooltan Division, responsible for an area of 15,000 square miles. In 1865-1867 on his rerum to Britain he was employed by Edward Wilson on preparatory work for the line up the Bargoed Valley and for (Sir) John Fowler on the Liverpool & Birkenhead Railway, a precursor of the Mersey Railway. He set up in practice in March 1867 and was one of the inspecting engineers of the Irish Railways Commission, working with Wilson again. In 1869 and 1870 he carried two Bills for the Severn & Wye Railway through Parliament, and in 1871 he was successful with the Mitcheldean Road & Forest of Dean Junction Railway Act, though much less successful with local lines in the Welsh Marches and the Fens. His office was at 7 Westminster Chambers. This line, like many others in the area, was poorly financed and the GWR was authorised to subscribe up to half of the capital. On several occasions W.G. Owen, for the GWR, had to write to the local company of which his son was Engineer urging them to upgrade the works. R. Angus Buchanan in Chrimes

Surnames beginning "P"

Page, Frederick Harold Dunn
Author of paper presented to Instn civ. Engrs. Ryl Engrs Div. and keywords imply was probably a GWR employee

Page, George Gordon
Born in London in 1836; died on 13 July 1885. (Denis Smith and P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes); son of Thomas Page (below). Engineer of Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway. Mentioned by Michael Messenger J Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2013 (218) 2. Obituary Min. Proc.. Instn civ. engrs., 1885, 82, 377-8 (££)

Page, Thomas
Born in London on 26 October 1803; died in Paris on 8 January 1877. Assistant engineer on Marc Brunel's Thames Tunnel. Worked on unfulfilled projects for a central London station which would have linked the lines from Brighton and from Norwich via the Thames Tunnel using atmospheric power. Mlost of his main work was on bridges and embankments. Denis Smith and P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes. Stanley Smith in ODNB.

Pare, William
William Pare was the son of John Pare, cabinet-maker and upholsterer, of Birmingham. He was apprenticed to his father, but became a reporter. He subsequently established a business as a tobacco and cigar retailer in the town. In 1826 he helped to found the Birmingham Mechanics' Institute and became active in the movement for parliamentary reform. He also took part in the movement for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and for Roman Catholic emancipation. He became a disciple of Robert Owen. From 1846 to 1865 Pare lived near Dublin, and was engaged in the management of ironworks at Clontarf, Liverpool, and Chepstow. In 1868 he helped to establish a co-operative ironworks in Norway. He was a strong advocate of the co-operative movement. In 1861 Pare wrote: 'In 1847 I joined the members of an engineering firm in Liverpool, largely engaged in the construction of railway plant for home and foreign use. We together established extensive works of this character in Dublin, under the style of The Irish Engineering Company, of which I became the managing partner, and which I now retain as sole owner — the conduct, however devolving on others. My firm was well known to many of the chief railway engineers, among whom was the late Mr Brunel, under whom we constructed — partly in Liverpool, and partly in Dublin — the iron tubular bridge for the passage of the South Wales Railway over the Wye at Chepstow....Graces Guide. Also Backtrack, 2016, 30, 116

Paterson, Thomas
Born on 26 December 1830 and educated at Edinburgh High School. Pupil of John Miller and Benjamin Blyth: worked for latter on several railway schemes; being Resident Engineer on the Great North of Scotland Railway, Carmel Bridge branch and on the Carlisle and Silloth Bay Railway, From about 1856 to January 1863 he was the chief office assistant. On 1 September 1863 he took up duties in New Zealand as a Provincial Engineer in Otago on the recommendation of the Stevensons. Settlement in the area had only started in the 1840s and Dunedin was set out as part of the New Edinburgh scheme by Charles Henry Kettle (1820-1862) and Edward Jollie (1825-1894). Although nominally Chief Engineer for Roads he was almost immediately asked to report on the merits of roads and railways for opening up the Province. His first preoccupation was continuing roads to the Central District, and he recommended in April 1864 the abandonment of the existing central roads via Taieri, Moa Creek, etc. By then, on 24 March he had given up his roads works because of the volume of railway development. He continued for six months as Chief Engineer for Roads until J.T. Thompson arrived, although now acting as Chief Engineer for Railways for Otago. In 1865 he reported on a railway to Taieri, preferring the use of tunnels at Caversham and Chain Hills to steep inclines. On 26 April 1866 he became Engineer for the Winto-Invercargill Railway, assisted by W.N. Blair. Progress was slow, in part because of a dispute with the contractors. An initially unsuccessful attempt to operate with wooden rails failed and he recommended the use of 56 lb. rails with a standard gauge. He recommended using Blyth & Cunningham as UK inspecting engineers for railway material. On 18 November 1868 he offered to design and supervise the construction of the Oreti Railway for a lump sum of £1,200, although his offer was not taken up. In January 1868 he recommended the use of standard gauge for the Northern Railway and in July 1868 he was part of a Commission reporting on the state of Canterbury's railways. While surveys in Otago proceeded there was an active debate, 1868-1869, on the choice of gauge. As one of the colony's most experienced engineers Paterson was consulted about other projects. He was Consulting Engineer to Southland Province for the Oreli Railway. He inspected the work of contractors for railway work in Canterbury. He reported in 1869 on the condition of the Lyttleton Tunnel which had been opened, with outstanding difficulties. Paterson drowned on 15 December 1869 in the Kakanui River, while bringing his design for the Rangitata Bridge to Dunedin for official approval. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes.

Pauling, George Craig Sanders
Born on 6 September 1854 in Walworth, Surrey, the eldest child of Richard Clark Pauling (1833–1894), civil engineer, and his wife, Jane Sanders Bone. His father, grandfather, and great-uncle were all railway contractors. Pauling's father, having spent several years in India, intended him for service in that country, but George's schooling ended when the family income was reduced by his father's illness and irregular employment. After casual work, Pauling was taken on as a pupil in 1870 by Joseph Firbank, a major railway contractor. In 1874 his father was appointed engineer to the Cape Government Railways, and first his younger brother Harold and then George himself joined him there in 1875; he soon became a contractor on his own account, forming Firbank, Pauling & Co. with his former employer. They won the contract for a tunnel on the Grahamstown line, then under construction, and made a respectable £15,000 profit. Thus financially secure Pauling married in 1878 Annie Ayton; they had two sons. Throughout his life Pauling could not resist the lure of speculating in a variety of schemes and business ventures; he invested in a saddlery, and in an ostrich and cattle ranch started by friends, and having become a freemason he undertook to build the masonic temple in Grahamstown. He then departed for England, in 1879, with his wife and baby son, intending to find work there, but was forced to return in haste on learning that his investments in Grahamstown were at risk. Everything was going against him: a drought had reduced yields on the ranch, part of the masonic temple had collapsed, and one of his loans was unlikely to be repaid. In some desperation, Pauling called in his creditors in 1880. He later invested in gold mining at Witwatersrand, but left before the astonishing richness of that field was appreciated.
During the 1880s Firbank, Pauling & Co. undertook a number of major railway projects. The line between Port Alfred and Grahamstown was completed in 1884, and the firm was also responsible for Kimberley Railway. This ‘brought to completion the railway construction scheme, which had been initiated in 1874 to connect the harbours of the Cape Colony with Kimberley’ (Heydenrych, 535). In June 1885 Pauling's wife died, and Pauling sent his two sons to England to be cared for by his mother. In the succeeding years he operated on an international scale, travelling extensively through the Turkish dominions, where a railway was planned from Alexandretta (Iskenderun), through Persia, to Karachi. Pauling subsequently built railways in Greece and Puerto Rico. He constructed the line from Haifa to Damascus and undertook a number of other major civil engineering works, including the Tata and Shirawata dams in India. On 1 November 1887 Pauling married Edith Kate Halliwell in the UK; they had one daughter.
In 1889 Pauling was in Johannesburg having discussions with the financier Baron Emile D'Erlanger regarding investment in mines, when tenders were invited for the first railway in the Transvaal. This was the ‘Rand tram’, a railway from Johannesburg to Boksburg. Pauling, in partnership with James Butler, secured the contract; work began in 1890, and later additional lines were laid from Johannesburg to Krugersdorp and from Boksburg to Springs. Pauling and Butler also constructed part of the Delagoa Bay Railway at Krokodilpoort. Through President Kruger, a friend of the family, and also through Cecil Rhodes, other railway projects materialized. These included the line from Vryburg to Mafeking, which Pauling completed in 1891, at Rhodes's request. His firm also constructed the line from Beira to Umtali, and on to Salisbury. Other major lines included the railway from Mafeking to Bulawayo, the line across Sir Lowry's Pass to Caledon, and also the railway from Ashton, via Swellendam and Riversdale, to Mossel Bay. During these turbulent years, Pauling, a strong and sturdy man, always apt to respond with his fists rather than with words, resisted epidemics of cholera and conflicts with native peoples and with animals, mostly lions. He also undertook civil engineering projects in England, as one of the partners of Pauling and Elliott, until the partnership was dissolved in 1894. The contracting work was then undertaken by Pauling & Co.
Pauling was appointed commissioner of public works to the first legislative assembly in Rhodesia in 1895. At a later date he also served as vice-chairman of the Rhodesian chamber of mines. Pauling in 1903 established another firm, the Transvaal Engineering and Contracting Company, which built further railways in Natal and elsewhere. More than anyone else, Pauling was the architect of the railway system in southern and central Africa. Between 1900 and 1918 he built several hundred miles of railway in Rhodesia, including an extension to the Katanga copper mines at Elizabethville (Lubumbashi) in partnership with Belgian interests. He was also responsible for part of the Benguela railway across Angola, as well as the railway from Port Herald to Blantyre in Nyasaland. It is not known what became of his second wife but on 17 November 1906 Pauling married Dolores (Lola) Guibara and the marriage produced another daughter. Having abandoned freemasonry in his early years, Pauling subsequently became a staunch Roman Catholic. He generously funded the building of a Catholic church at Effingham, Surrey, where his last years were spent. Pauling died at his home, The Lodge, Effingham, on 10 February 1919, and was survived by his third wife. ODNB entry by Robert Brown and Anita McConnell. BDCE Volume 3 by Doug Walters. Burton The railway empire

Pawley, Richard
Born in London on 13 March 1857; died Southport 8 November 1940. Educated City of London School In December 1873 artided to William Hunt, engineer on the East London Railway. In  January 1876 he joined the engineering staff of the L&YR and was appointed assistant engineerr on the Cheetham Hill-Prestwich section of the new line from Manchester to Bury. In 1879 he was given full charge of the work involving construction of 8 miles of track, under Sturges Meek. In April 1880 he was appointed resident engineer under Meek on the Farnworth tunnel works on the Manchester-Bolton line to permit the passage of the MR Pullman coaches. In 1881-4 he was responsible, under Meek, for the reconstruction of Manchester Victoria station. In January 1885 he began supervising construction, agaln under Hunt, who by then was chief engineer of the LYR, of the new main line from Pendleton to Hindley, 13 miles of 4-track road, and 2 miles of other lines, as part of the new route from Manchester to Liverpool. In 1888, at only 31, Pawley was appointed chief engineer of the Hull, Bamsley & West Riding Junction Railway & Dock Co, to become known as the Hull & Bamsley Railway in 1905, including several tunnels through the Wolds; extension of the Alexandra Dock, Hull, completed in 1899; Wath branch, 1902; and the Braithwell Junction-Laughton Junction (HBR, GCR and MR |Joint) line, opened in 1909. In 1906 he was appointed engineer for the King George Dock, Hull, built jointly by the HBR and the NER. This was opened by King George V in 1914. He was also engineer on the Gowdall Junction-Braithwell Junction line built jointly by the HBR and the GCR, and opened in 1916. He retired in 1922 when aged 65, shortly before the HBR was amalgamated with the NER on 1 April 1922. For many years he lived in retirement at Scarborough. Marshall

Paxton, Sir Joseph
KPJ had never associated Paxton, noteworthy for the design of the Crystal Palace, with the design of railways, but Chrimes shows otherwise. Paxton was born in Milton Bryan in Bedfordshire on 3 August 1803. The Duke of Devonshire recognised his talent and employed as his head gardner at Chatsworth when Paxton was only 23. His innovations in greenhouse design led to the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition in 1851. He envisaged the Great Victorian Way which would have been built above the streets in London to provide an elevated walkway and railway. He died at Rockhills in Sydenham on 8 June 1865. James Sutherland in Chrimes.

Peck, Richard
A mining engineer who was greatly involved in the development of timber railways in the eigteenth century. His houses were located at what is now the Kenton Bankfoot area of Newcastle upon Tyne: see Les Turnbull

Pearson, Samuel and descendents
In 1844 Samuel Pearson founded a small brickmaking and contracting company. In the 1850s George Pearson, Samuel's eldest son, was running the contracting business in Bradford. Descendents became huge civil engineering contractors. Sir Edward Pearson, whose family home was Brickendonbury was KPJ's place of work for many happy years.

Perring, John Shae
Born in Boston on 24 January 1813; died in Manchester on 16 January 1869. Egyptologist and civil engineer. In 1836 he was appointed engineer of the Cairo and Suez Railway. When this was abandoned he had charge of short railways near Alexandria and above Cairo. He returned to Britain in June 1849 and became Engineering Superintendent of the Llanelly Railway & Dock Company and was later associated with the Manchester, Bury & Rossendale Railway. David Gwyn The first railways in Africa jn Early Railways 6.

Peters, Gordon Donaldson
Born c1836. in Perth. In 1891 living in Hampstead. Railway contractor. Died 27 December 1899. He also carried on business under the style or firm of James Mcllwraith and Co., in  Glasgow, Presumably foundeer of firm G.D. Peters who supplied electric welding equipment and flooring for rolling stock and other railway equipment. Grace's Guide

Piercy, Benjamin
Born in Trefeglwys, Montgomeryshire on 16 March 1827; died in London on 24 March 1888. Son of Robert Piercy, valuer and surveyor. Trained in his father's office and about 1847 became chief assistant to Charles Mickleburgh of Montgomery. During this period he spent all his spare time studying railways and civil engeering. His first railway work was under Henry Robertson in making parliamentary surveys for the Shrewsbury & Chester Railway and later for the Oswestry & Newtown Railway . In 1852 he was appointed engineer of the Red Valley Railway project from Shrewsbury to Minsterley and Newtown for the Shrewsbury-We!shpool line. Other railways on which he was engineer were: Oswestry-Ellesmere & Whitchurch, opened 1863-4; Llanidloes & Newtown, opened 1859; Newtown & Machynlleth, opened 1863, the Welsh coastal lines from Aberystwyth to Pwllheli, oened 1863-7; the Vale of Clwyd (Rhyl-Denbigh), opened 1858, Caernarvonshire (Menai Bridge-Caernarvon), opened 1867; Denbigh, Ruthin & Corwen, opened to Ruthin 1862, Corwen 1864; Bishops Castle, Mid Wales (Moat Lane Jn-Talyllyn), opened to Llanidloes 1859, Talyllyn 1864; Hereford, Hay & Brecon, opened 1862-4; Kington & Eardisley (Kington-New Radnor) surveyed in 1862 but not opened to New Radnor until 1875, Hoylake (Birkenhead-Hoylake) and the Wrexham, Mold & Connah's Quay, both in 1866 (see John C. Hughes Backtrack, 2018, 32, 676 for former (includes portrait)). These lines included extensive works such as Oswestry and Welshpool stations, Talerddig cutting, 120ft deep, and many bridges including the great Barmouth bridge. In 1862 he was asked to resurvey the proposed Sardinian Railway system which he did, reducng the tunnelling and producing an acceptable project which was adopted. Because of war and political troubles the lines were not completed until 1881. During 25 years in Sardinia he carried out many improvements in agriculture. In France he was chief engr of the Napoleon-Vendee Railway, about 160 miles from Tours via Bressuire to Sables d'Olonne. In India he was engineer of about 90 miles of the line of the Assam Railways & Trading Co. He died shortly after returning to England. Marshall, also P.S.M. Cross Rudkin in Chrimes.

Pintsch, Carl Friedrich Julius
Born in Berlin on 6 January 1815; died 30 January 1884. Tinsmith who invented manufacture of oil gas used as an illuminant for railway carriages and for navigation buoys. Associated with fires at railway accidents, especially Quintinshill (Wikipedia).

Pope, W.
Invented manufacture of oil gas used as an illuminant for railway carriages and established Gotha Works at Slough using Scottish shale oil. Lewis The manufacture and distribution of gas for coach lighting. Great Western Railway J., 2016 (99), 177-9. Carter Oil gas manufacture... Backtrack, 2019, 33, 524-7.

Potter, James
Born in Lichfleld on 10 March 1801; died in Sheffield? on 23 August 1857. Trained under his father Joseph Potter, an architect, from age 16. Afterwards articled to William Brunton at the Eagle Foundry, Birmingham 1822 worked with his father on bridges and was appointed resident engineer under Telford on constructing the second Harecastle canal tunne. In 1830 he rebuilt the Oxford Canal. During 1835-6 he managed the Croydon division of the South Eastern Railway and In 1837 was employed by J.U. Rastrick. In 1845 he was appointed assistant engineer on the London & Bnghton Railway under Rastrick, constructing all the tunnels. He also superintended construction of part of the Brighton-Chichester Railway. He was then appointed resident engineer on the. Sheffield-Grimsby line (MSLR) and in 1852 was appointed chief engineer, which position he held until his death. Marshall

Price, Edward
Born at Callow Hill, near Minsterley, Shropshire in about 1805 or 1806; died Homsey, London, on 31 March 1871 aged 66 As a boy he was engaged by Mackenzie on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal as time-keeper. Soon afterwards he found employment on sewers. in London. When the London & Birmingham Railway was being built he obtained employment in Primrose Hill tunnel, under the contractor Thomas Jackson, later under Robert Stephenson, who gave him more responsibility In Kilsby tunnel. 1838-9 executed a contract on the GWR at Chippenham. In 1844, on recommendation of Robert Stephenson, he went to France where he built the tunnel at La Nerthe on the Marseilles-Lyon line. 1846-9 contracted for part of the NSR under G P Bidder. 1851-4 he was in Egypt where. he built the Benha and Kaffre Azayat bridges over the Nile for Robert Stephenson, and part of the Alexandria-Cairo Railway. The bridges involved sinking caissons 90ft into the nver bed. He then contracted for the Dom Pedro Segundo Railway in Brazil, from Rio de Janeiro to the foot of the Serra S Anna, 40 miles. Further foreign contracts followed In Portugal and Asia Minor, but the financial stress of the latter broke his health. Marshall also Chrimes in Chrimes who gives a fuller description of a successful railway contractor.

Price, James
Born in Monkstown, County Dublin, on 18 January 1831; died in Dublin (Cox states at Knockeevin in Greystoneson) 4 April 1895. Educated Trinity College, Dublin, obtaining Dip Engg 1850, BA 1851. In 1855-7 resident engiineer on Banbridge Junction Railway under james Barton. 1859-60 resident engineer on Cootehill- Ballybay line and in 186(}-2 in charge of permanent way and works on the Dublin & Belfast Junction Railway (later GNR). At the end of 1862 he was app engineer in chief of the MGWR and of the Royal Canal, until May 1877 after which he practised on his own account in Dublin. Marshall, but Ron Cox in Chrimes adds much noting major drainaage works on Lough Erne and further railway work (Cork & Macroom) and that he did not favour narrow gauge railways. Marshall also Cox in Chrimes

Priestley, Alfred Coveney  
Born 2 December 1837; articled in 1853 to Sir Charles Fox, under whom he served for five years at the London Works, Birmingham. He was then appointed an Assistant Engineer on the Cape Government Railways, and from 1858 to 1863 was first in charge of the construction of 16 miles of the Cape Town and Wellington line, and subsequently employed on surveys for extensions. In 1864 Priestley returned to England and worked for six months as an Assistant Engineer on the Carnarvon and Llanberis Railway. He was next employed from 1865 to 1871 on the construction of the Metropolitan District Railway for the contractors, Kelk, Waring Brothers and Lucas, and was then engaged for three years on the Somerset and Dorset and the East London Railways for T. and C. Walker, the contractors. In 1874 he entered the service of Lucas Brothers, which firm became Lucas and Aird in the following year. Priestley was for twenty years Chief Engineering Agent in the office of Lucas and Aird, and during which time they were concerned with large scale dock, railway and other works, including the Royal Albert Dock, Tilbury Docks, the Alexandra Dock (Hull), and various extensions of the Midland, London, Chatham and Dover, and South Eastern Railways. He died on 16 February 1895, from acute bronchitis. Graces Guide

Quartermaine, Allan
Born 9 November 1888; died 17 October 1978. Educated University College, London  Chief Engineer, Great Western Railway and Western Region, British Railways, 1940–51; President Institution of Civil Engineers, 1951–52 (Who Was Who). Other than when serving in Palestine during WW1 (on construction of railways from  Suez to Haifa) and during WW2 as director general of aircraft production factories he spent his whole career on the GWR or Western Region. He took a great interest in mechanisation and was "a fine all-round manager" Pearson Man of the rail.

Surnames beginning "Ra"

Radford, William (born 1816)
Born in Pater, Pembrokeshire on 23 December 1816. Trained under his father who worked at Pembroke Dock, later at Plymouth. Worked on Hanwell embankment on Great Western Railway and plans for railways associated with London & Birmingham Railway (line between Coventry and Nuneaton) and Midland Railway (Leicester and Swannington) and projected Oxford-Coventry-Burton-on-Trent line, also proposal to convert Regent's Canal to a railway, but this ld to opposition from the Crown. He died on 11 May 1854. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes

Radford, William (born 1817)
Born in 1817 in Salford. He was a pupil of George Watson Buck, Engineer of the Manchester & Birmingham Railway. He was sent to Denmark to work on the Altona & Kiel Railway and he stayed on after Buck's health failed and then worked on the Zeeland Railway. In 1850 he returned to Britain and practiced as a public works engineer, including many bridges. He died in Whalley Range, Manchester on 1 November 1897 Mike Chrimes in Chrimes

Rankine, William John Macquorn
Born in Edinburgh on 5 July 1820. Educated at Ayr Academy, Glasgow High School and Edinburgh University. He assisted his father on the Edinburgh & Dalkeith Railway aand was a pupil of Sir John Macneill  when he worked on the Dublin & Drogheda Railway. He subsequently worked on the Clydesdale Junction Railway and the Caledonian Railway, His greatest contribution to engineering was as a Professor at Glasgow University from 1856. He was greatly interested in the hot air engine and had a vast published output including An experimental inquiry into the advantages attending the use of cylindrical wheels on railways (1842: Ottley 327) and The steam engine and other prime movers (1859)  He published two papers on the problem of cutrves on railways in Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs, Volume 2 (1843) on pp. 105 and 108. The Rankine Cycle, the key to the thermodynamics of all steam engines, is based on his studies. He died in Glasgow on 24 December 1872. Ben Marsden ODNB. Ted Ruddock in Chrimes.

Ratter, John
Born 15 May 1908 in South Shields; died 25 December 1985. Educated St Peters School, York and Durham University. Civil Engineer. Various appointments as civil engineer with London and North Eastern Railway and London Passenger Transport Board, 1929–39; War of 1939–45: served with Royal Engineers, France, Africa and Italy, and in War Office; Deputy Director of Transportation, CMF, with rank of Colonel. Various appointments with LNER and LPTB and Railway Executive, 1945–53; Chief Civil Engineer, British Transport Commission, 1953–54; Technical Adviser, BTC, 1954–58; Member: BTC, 1958–62. British Railways Board, 1963–70. President International Union of Railways, 1960–62. CBE 1945, Legion of Merit (USA), 1944; Légion d’Honneur (France), 1963; Order of Merit, German Federal Republic, 1968; Comdr, Order of Leopold II, Belgium, 1969. Railway Adviser, World Bank, Washington DC, 1970–74.
Pearson Man of the rail: The most successful of this group of officers was John Ratter, chief officer (civil engineering). He began his railway career in 1929 on the L.N.E.R., and was civil engineer (maintenance), LPTB, when he came to the Railway Executive. After he had served on the general staff of the Commission as technical adviser, the Minister of Transport, on Robertson's recommendation, appointed him a member of the Commission and later he continued as a member of the Railways Board. He was a modest, competent, likeable man, and we did a lot of work together. He had not perhaps the strong personality of his predecessor, Sir Landale Train, but he managed to keep together a team of technical officers, some of whom had strong views, and were not always easy to work with. Pearson also notes (pp. 132-3) that Ratter when giving evidence to the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries in 1960 was highly astute in his replies to Mr Austin Albu concerning the slow implementation of diesel traction on British Railways, noting both the excellent diesel shunting locomotives and the multiple unit programme, but did concede that 50, rather than five diesel locomotives should have been acquired in 1948..

Ree, H.S.C.
Chief Engineer Cardiff Railway from 1902 until retirement on 31 March 1914: RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10. The Cardiff Railway. Locomotive Mag. 1924, 30, 203-4;   1925, 31, 23.

Reilly, Callcott
Born in Chester in 1829; died 21 May 1900 at Englefield Green shortly after falling off a tricycle. Attempted to run away to sea, which led to an apprenticeship at sea, followed by a further apprenticeship to Chester millwrights. In 1857 he was appointed chief clerk to Edward Woods who at that time was working on contacts for railway construction in India and South America including the Argentine Central Railway. Through intensive private study Callcott Reilly presented to the Institution of Civil Engineeers in 1865 a careful and elaborate Paper 1110 entitled “On uniform stress in girder work, illustrated by reference to two bridges recently built. The bridges in question were that carrying the line of the Central Argentine Railway over the River Desmochado, or Carcaraiial, about 30 miles west of the town of Rosario, and the Horsham and Guildford Railway Bridge over the Wey and Arun Canal, about 5 miles south of Guildford. The conclusions he sought to establish were that a comparatively small deviation of the centre of stress upon the cross section of any bar, of any piece of framework, from the centre of gravity of that section, produced, within the limits of elasticity, a comparatively great inequality in the distribution of the stress upon that section; that the existence of this unequal distribution of the stress must be detrimental to the strength of any structure in which it existed; that there was no practical or theoretical difficulty in designing a truss, or girder, in which the stress upon every cross section of all the important members at all events should be absolutely uniform; and that the condition of uniform stress was perfectly consistent with the utmost economy of material. For this Paper, which combined elaborate theoretical investigation with good practical results, the Author was awarded the Telford medal and premium. In 1870 Callcott Reilly submitted a second Paper (1257), entitled Studies of iron girder bridges, recently executed, illustrating some applications of the modern theory of the elastic resistance of materials. According to J.H. Rapley in Chrimes the only other bridge associated with Reilly was one across the floodplain of the River Stour at Christchurch commissioned by Moorsom to carry the Ringwood, Christchurch & Bournemouth Railway.

Reynolds, John
Invented (GB 6827 Railways 5 May 1835 Woodcroft) form of longitudinal track structure evaluated by the Liverpool & Manchester Railway for use on Chat Moss: see Andrew Dow The railway and ICE paper

Richardson, Cbarles
Born at Capenhurst Hall near Chester on 14 August 1814; died in Bristol on 10 February 1896. Educated privately and near Paris and at Edinburgh University. When aged 19 he was apprenticed to I.K. BruneI. His first practical experience was under Marc Brunel constructing the Thames Tunnel, and then on Clifton Suspension Bridge. As a pupil he did much work on the GWR around Gloucester including the Sapperton Tunnel and Box Tunnel. He was then appointed resident engineer on the Hereford, Ross & Gloucester Railway, 1853-5. In 1858 appointed resident engineer on the Bristol &  South Wales Union Railway. On the death of Brunel in 1859 he became chief engineer in conjunction with R.P. Brereton. This led to his appointment as chief engineer of the Severn Tunnel. In March 1873 the first shaft was sunk on the western side. In 1879 an influx of water under the Shoots led the GWR to appoint Sir John Hawkshaw (qv) as chief engineer in conjunction with Richardson. He was also engineer of the Bristol Harbour Railway. As a result of work on the Bristol & South Wales Union line he established extensive brick works near Patchway tunnel. Chrimes in Chrimes. Marshall.

Rickard, Percy
Born in Derby on 12 March 1859; died on Dore & Chinley Railway in Derbyshire on 31 October 1893. Educated at Derby Grammar School. Entered MR locomotive works at Derby as pupil under S.W. Johnson. In  November 1877 he was articled to Edward Parry of Nottingham, then acting as one of the resident engrineers on the construction of the Nottingham-Melton line of the MR. In April 1880 he entered the service of the LYR under William Hunt. In January.1883 Rickard was appointed divisional engineer in charge of about 150 miles in the Yorkshire district, responsible for maintenance of peermanent way, station buildings and signals. He left the LYR in July 1885. In 1886 he returned to Edward Parry, then engineer on the Nottingham Suburban Railway on which he was appointed resident engineer. He then became resident engineer for Parry and Story on No 1 contract on the MR Dore & Chinley line. The section,10½ miles, included Totley tunnel, 3½ miles long, second longest in Britain. While on this work he contracted typhoid from which he died. . Marshall.

Ridgway, Reginald John
Born on 27 October 1908 and educated at King's College School, Wimbledon. He died in 2002. He had read Engineering at Imperial College and then worked for Charles Brand on many London Underground projects including the Cockfosters to Turnpike Lane extension of the Piccadilly Line, St. Paul's station on the Central Line and with Balfour Beatty on Green Park station. He met Ernest Marples when acting as a consultant to Kirk & Kirk where Marples  was a director.

Ridley, Martyn Noel
Born in Regent's Park, London on 28 Decembeer 1860; died in Hastings on 23 January 1937. His main expertise was in the design of piers and dovetail sheeeting on which he held patents. He was associated with  several railways which failed to materialise: one between Southend and Colchester would have saved large scale bustitution on Essex's ruritanian "railway system". A railway between Uxbridge and Rickmansworth would have relieved pressure on the static M25 .  Rob Thomas in BDCE3.  Frictionless road and railway bogie described in a paper presented at Leeds on 31 March 1927 Locomotive Mag., 1927, 33, 130..

Surnames beginning "Ro"

Robertson, Frederick Ewart
Born lon 24 February 1847. Died from throat cancer on 16 November 1912. Chrimes in BDCE3 Paper on the Landsdowne Bridge over the Indus at Sukkur ICE Paper No. 2475.

Robertson, Robert Marshall
Connected with railways throughout his professional career, the last thirty-seven years of which were spent in the service of the Furness Railway, both during its independent existence and after its absorption into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. He received his technical education at the Heriot-Watt College and served his apprenticeship in the engineer's department of the North British Railway in Edinburgh, from 1899 to 1904. He remained in the employment of the railway company for a further six years, successively occupying the positions of machinery and steelwork inspector, and bridge constructional foreman. He began in 1910 his long connexion with the Furness Railway with the joint appointment of bridge and constructional inspector. In 1918 he was made engineering works superintendent with responsibility for the maintenance of all marine installations and hydro-power stations. His final position which he held from 1939 was that of outdoor machinery assistant. Robertson died in his sixty-fourth year on 17 August 1947; he was elected an Associate Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1922 (IMechE obituary).

Robinson, Moncure
Born in Richmond, Virginia, on 2 February 1802; died Philadelphia, Pennsylvia, on 10 November 1891. Educated at Gerardine Academy, and in 1816-17 at the College of William & Mary. In 1818 began with a corps of surveyors and in 1822 worked on the James River Canal. He then became interested in railways and in 1825-8 visited Europe to study public works. On his return to the USA he made surveys for the Pottsville & Danville Railway and the Allegheny Portage Railroad. In the next three years he was engaged in building the Petersburg & Roanoke and Richmond & Petersburg lines. For the latter he built a bridge over the St James River, 2,844ft long with 19 spans of l40-153ft In 1834 he began his major work, the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, including a 644yd tunnel at Phoenixville and a stone viaduct of four spans of 72ft In 1836 he went to England to raise funds to complete the Railroad. In 1840, on the invitation of the Tsar, he advised on constructing railways in Russia. Although a self-taught engineer he was elected an honourary Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Marshall

Robinson, Stephen
Born 1794; died 1881. Engineer of the Clarence & Hartlepool Junction Railway and Principal Engineer of the Hartlepool Dock & Railway (Dawn Smith). Graces Guide also indicates that he was involved with coal mining in County Durham and was associated with Sharp Stuart & Co.

Roebling. John Augustus
Born in Mülhausen, Thuringia, Germany, on 12 June 1806; died Brooklyn on 22 July 1869. Educated in Mülhausen schools and at the Royal Polytechnic Institute in Berlin, where he was a pupil of Hegel and also learned engineering, obtaining a degree in civil engineering in 1826. After a frustrated start he and his brother KarI emigrated to the USA in 1831 and bought 7,000 acres of land in Butler County nr Pittsburgh, but gave up farming and became a state engineer at Harrisburg. Observation of the hemp ropes on the inclines of the Allegheny Portage Railroad led him to develop a wire rope and in 1841 he manufactured the first wire rope made in America, in a smalJ factory in Saxonburg. In 1848-9 he transferred his factory to Trenton, New Jersey. At the same time he developed his interest in bridge building and in 1846 completed his first suspension bridge at Pittsburgh. In 1848-50 he built 4 suspension aqueducts for the Delaware & Hudson Canal. One of his most important bridges was the double-deck suspension bridge carrying the Great Western Railway of Canada over the Niagara Gorge, completed in 1855 (replaced in 1897). In the course of surveys for the Brooklyn Bridge his foot was injured on a jetty in a ferry collision and he contracted tetanus from which he died. His son Washington Augustus (1837-1926), who worked with him from 1857, carried on the construction of the bridge to completion in 1883. Roebling was a vigorous opponent of slavery and a strict self-disciplinarian. His book Long and short span railway bridges (1869) was in the press when he died. He was a keen musician and played both flute and piano. Marshall.

Rose, Cecil Guy
Born in 1877. Died in 1962. Worked  for London, Brighton & South Coast Railway then Assistant Engineer North Staffordshire Railway  responsible for War Memorial at Stoke station. Fell in Backtrack, 2020, 34, 625

Russell, William
Bridge engineer Forth Bridge in early LNER period. NBR Study Group J., 2004 (91) 15..

Ruttan, Henry Norlande
Born in Cobourg, Ontario, on 21 May 1848; died Winnipeg 13 October1925. Educated locally. In 1867 he was appointed to the engineering staff of the Grand Trunk Railway and a year later assistant on the engineering staff of the Intercolonial Railway, later employed as resident engineer on the construction. In 1874 he was engaged on preliminary surveys on the northern shore of Lake Superior for the CPR. During 1875-7 he was responsible for surveying 400 miles and the location of 200 miles of the CPR east of the Yellowhead Pass in the Rockies. He acted as resident engineer from 1877 to 1880 for the contractors constructing the line from Lake of the Woods, Ontario, to Winnipeg. In 1880 he began private practice. He designed and built the swing bridges over the Red River at Emerson and over the Assinboine river at Winnipeg. He was engineer and contractor for the first 40 miles of the Manitoba North Western Railway and contractor for constructing the first 50 miles of the Manitoba South Western Railway. Iin 1885 he left railway work and became city engineerr of Winnipeg, until 1914. Marshall.

Surnames beginning "Sa"

Sandberg, Christer Peter
Born Venersborg, Sweden, on 8 October 1832; died at his residence in Sydenham on 4 December 1913. After completing his technical education, he was employed at blast-furnaces and ironworks in Sweden and in 1855 he received a premium from the Swedish Iron and Steel Association to further his practical study in iron manufacture. In 1860 he went to England on behalf of the Swedish Government as inspecting engineer for rails intended for the Swedish Railways, and held this position until his death. In 1862 he was sent by the Swedish Iron and Steel Association to Spain, Italy, and Austria, to study and report upon the iron industries of these countries. In 1868 he also established a general consulting practice for permanent-way material, and soon acquired a world-wide reputation on this subject. In 1890 he contributed a Paper to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on Steel rails, considered chemically and mechanically. His sections of rails, known as the Sandberg sections, were first brought out in 1878, and a later design in 1894. In 1886 he read a paper before the Institution of Civil Engineers, in which he urged the adoption of a 100-1b. flange rail, 51 inches deep, the proportions in the section being 43 per cent. in the head, 22 per cent. in the web, and 35 per cent. in the flange. This rail had twice as much wearing surface as the 66-1b. rail then in use. In regard to the hardness of rails and to their capacity for withstanding a crushing effect, particularly at the ends, it is interesting to note that he carried out crushing tests as early as 1894, with a view to applying them to rail inspection.  Lawrance Hurst wrote a rather thin biography in Chrimes which notres that he was  buried in his place of birth. Son Oscar Fridolf Alexander Sandberg was born in 1878 and died in 1940 (Locomotive Mag., 1940, 46, 84)

Sandeman, William Young
Born: 3 February 1890, in Fauldhouse, West Lothian. Engineer, Scottish Region.Entered railway service in 1913. Retired 1951. OBE, MC, BSc, MInstCE:

Scherzer, William
Born in Peru, Illinois on 27 January 1858 of German parentage. Educated at Zurich Polytechnicum in Switzerland. Invented rolling lift bridge US Patent 511,713. Died of typhoid on 20 July 1893 and business developed by his younger brother Albert H. Scherzer born in 1865; died c1935. See Humm Scherzer rolling lift bridges in the British Isles. Archive, 2015 (85), 26. Article includes portraits of both brothers.

Scott, Alexander Alban Hamilton (or Archibald Alban Hamilton Scott, or Augustine Alban Hamilton Scott)
Born: 30 May 1876; died: Early 1944(?). Articled to Peter Caldwell of Paisley from 1890 to 1895, remaining for one year as assistant and studying at Paisley School of Art. In 1896 he assisted Robert Wemyss of Glasgow for eight months on Dunbartonshire and Lanarkshire railway station buildings, and James Archibald Morris of Ayr for three months, and in the following year spent three months with D Barker of Perth before moving to Glasgow as assistant to William Baillie. Before the year 1897 was out he moved offices again when he was appointed architect to the Caledonian Railway Company. After thirteen months in that position he took a new post as architect in the firm of Babtie & Bonn, civil engineers and architects, with whom he stayed until 1907, a year after their practice had become Babtie, Shaw & Morton. For much of this early period in Glasgow he studied at the Glasgow & West of Scotland Technical College and Glasgow School of Art (1897-1900 and again in 1902-3). He commenced practice on his own account in 1908 whilst pursuing further studies at Glasgow School of Architecture (1908-9). He was admitted LRIBA in the mass intake of 20 July 1911, proposed by John Bennie Wilson and the Glasgow Institute of Architects. At that date he was living and working at 43 Mill Street, Paisley. By 1909 he had moved his office to Glasgow, whilst retaining the same home address until around the time of the First World War. In 1922 he entered the Chicago Tribune Tower competition in collaboration with John A W Grant. Off Internet 26-04-2014

Scott, W.G.
Engineer-in-Chief Cheshire Lines Committee, a post he had held for 25 years in 1899: previously a district engineer with the MSLR. . Rly Mag., 1899, 4, 385.

Scratchley, Peter Henry
Herein as was the instigator of the narrow gauge (18-inch) railway at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich: see Locomotive Mag., 1921, 27, 257. This achievement is not noted by his biographers in the ODNB, nor its Australian equivalent, nor in Susan Hots biography in Chrimes (which also misses the 'Henry') where his work on the fortification of Australia and the annexation of New Guinea receive great attention. He died at sea in Australian waters on 2 December 1885. He had been born in Paris on 24 August 1835 and educated at the Royal Military College in Woolwich and eventually rose to a high rank.

Seaton, William
Inventor of the safety rail used on GWR, LNWR and LSWR. See Dow The Railway page 129

Sharpe, Edmund
Born on 31 October 1809  in Knutsford, Cheshire; died in Milan in 1877. Educated locally, then at Dr Burney's school in Greenwich, Sedbergh School, and St John's College, Cambridge. In 1832 awarded a Worts travelling fellowship, which he devoted to the study of architecture, mainly in France and Germany. In 1835 he settled in Lancaster and practised as an architect for fifteen years. His first involvement in promoting railways was in the 1830s, including construction of the portion of the Midland Railway from Morecambe to Skipton. 1877. In 1841 elected to Lancaster council. 1843 he married Elizabeth Fletcher (d. 1876), they had three sons and two daughters. 1845 Took E. G. Paley into partnership. They erected nearly forty new churches, as well several secular buildings. 1848-9 mayor of Lancaster 1848 fellow of RIBA 1849 Partner in the formation of Storey Brothers and Co, 1850 He purchased the Phoenix foundry in Lancaster - the business became Sharpe and Co. 1851 Withdrew from architecture. In 1856 went to live at near Betws-y-coed, Caernarvonshire, where he organized the building of the Conwy - Llanrwst Railway. Between 1863 to 1866 Sharpe lived abroad, constructing a horse-drawn tramway in Geneva and the Perpignan–Prades railway in south-west France. In 1867 he returned to Lancaster. In 1875 received the gold medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects

Shaw, Joshua
Engineer of Mersey Railway: presented a paper to the Instn of Civil Engrs, 1910, 179, 19 on The equipment and working-results of the Mersey Railway under steam and under electric traction. He retired from railway work in 1935.

Sheilds, Francis Webb [Wentworth-]
Born in County Meath on 18 January 1820; died 18 January 1906. His father, Rector of Kilbeg, and his mother was a member of the Wentworth family, when she died whilst he was still a child, his father took the surname Wentworth-Sheilds. Francis was educated in Dublin and in 1837 became a pupil of C.B. Vignoles who had extensive links with Ireland, and he worked under him on railways. In 1843 Sheilds went to New South Wales where he was Sydney's City Surveyor for three years and then Engineer to the Sydney Railway the first railway in Australia. His assistant was Joseph Brady, He moved to England in 1851 when  work on  the railway was suspended. He had used the Irish 5ft 33in gauge, but his successor James Wallace opted for standard gauge in July 1852. In England Sheilds was Engineer to the Crystal Palace until 1858. From 1857 Sheilds began to establish a consulting engineering practice, capitalising on his knowledge of designing iron structures; encapsulated in his book Tbe Strains on Structures of Ironwork (1867).  Sheilds drew up a scheme for what became the Victoria Embankment on the north bank of the Thames in central London, which was approved by the 1861 Royal Commission and similar to that built by (Sir) Joseph Bazalgette. In 1869 he was requested by Robert Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to review competing schemes for a permanent cross-channel link. He drew up a scheme for a bridge with 1,200 ft spans, but recommended a tunnel as the most feasible option. He also designed a tunnel between Deptford and Millwall, which obtained Parliamentary approval, but failed to attract capital. Sheilds' practice was extensive in both territory and coverage. In 1893 Wentworth-Sheilds retired to Sholing near Southampton. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes.

Shortt, William Hamilton
Born in Wimbledon on 28 September 1881; died 4 February 1971 in Exeter. Son of a civil engineer. Educated at King's College. He worked at the LSWR from 1902, starting as an articled pupil. He became an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1907. Shortt met Hope-Jones in 1910, and began collaborating in the design of master clocks from 1912, joining the Synchronome Company as a shareholder and director. Bonavia states that as Western District Engineer of the Southern Railway his track was impeccable from Salisbury to the heart of Cornwall and he presided over Meldon Quarry whose output broughtt the Eastern Section ballast up to standard. Remainder Wikipedia.

Simms, Frederick Walter.
Born in London on 24 December 1803 died on 27 February 1865. Simms suffered from ill-health in his younger years some difficulty was encountered in finding him suitable employment until via the influence of his brother he was despatched to Ireland as an assistant to the Ordnance Survey. After leaving Ireland Simms became an astronomical assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, under John Pond. He resigned his post on 31 October 1835, apparently having hoped to be awarded the post of First Assistant.and returned to his former occupation as a surveyor and civil engineer, visiting France with Richard Tappin Claridge, who in the 1830s patented the use of Seyssel asphalt in the UK, and later working with Claridge on the introduction of asphalt to Britain. The formation in 1838 of Claridge's Patent Asphalte Company gave an enormous impetus to the development of a British asphalt industry. Simms' own efforts included writing a pamphlet promoting the use of Seyssel asphalt, based on an 1836 paper by geologist M. Rozet.
In 1836 Simms joined the South Eastern Railway Company as a resident engineer and undertook a considerable number of works, including the construction of the Bletchingley and Saltwood tunnels. In 1846 the East India Company, having decided to construct railways in their territories, proposed to Simms that he become their consulting engineer in India. His health suffered from the climate and he spend some time in Mauritius before returning to duty where, among other work, he supervised a complete survey and mapping of the city of Calcutta which was principally carried out by local assistants. Having completed his engagement with the East India Company Simms returned to England in 1851, his health very much affected by India's climate and thereafter lived in retirement.

Surnames beginning "Sm"

Smith, John Chaloner
Born in Dublin on 19 August 1827; eldest son of John Smith, Proctor, Irish Eccesiiastical Courts. He entered Trinity College to study engineering, but left to start a pupilage under George Willoughby Hemans  who appointed him Resident Engineer of the Waterford & Limerick Railway during its construction. He then entered partnersgip with the contractor John Bagnall to cionstruct the Borris & Ballywillan, Clara & Streamstown and Roscrea & Birdhill lines. He ceased contracting in 1868 and subsequently became Engineer later Chief Engineer of the Dublin, Wicklow & Wexford Railway.

Smyth, W.S.
Engineer (including control of locomotive stock) of the Alexandra (Newport & South Wales) Docks and Railway from its early yesrs until 1901 when T.W.R. Pearson was appointed as Locomotive Engineer. RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10. .

Smith, Walter Mackenzie
Born in Ferryport-on-Craig, Montrose, on 25 February1842; died Newcastle upon Tyne 25 October 1906. Mech Engr, NER Ed Dundee High Sch. 1858 apprenticed to William Nonnan & Sons, engrs, and Todd & McGregor, Clyde Foundry, both In Glasgow. After this he entered Neilson & Co, Glasgow, for 1 Y2 yrs. He then joined Samuel Johnson (qv) on the Edinburgh & Glasgow R. He Invented an auxiliary regulator valve. 1866 went with Joh?son to the GER wks at Stratford, London, and desl~ed rolling stock. 1874 app loco C & W supt, Imperial Govt Rs, Japan, the first BIitish loco engr there In 1876 he erected workshops to enable rolling stock to be built in Japan. Returned to England in 1883 and was app to the NER under McDonnell (qv) who had become loco supt at Gateshead in 1882. S was placed in charge of workshops and machinery. Following McDonnell's forced resignation in 1884 S continued through the Interregnum and through the reign of T W Worsdell (qv) ~d, from 9.1890, under Wilson Worsdell (qv) who gave him complete freedom to experiment with his loco designs and even to have engines constructed. S designed. a successful compound 4-4{), No 1619, in 1898, This was the engine upon which S Johnson based his famous MR compounds, and J G Robinson (qv) his 4-4-2 compounds for the GCR. Smith's finest engines were the two 4-cyl compound 4-4-2s, NER nos 730-1, of 1906. He also designed a cross watertube firebox Proc IME 12.1906 pp 953-5; The Enqr v 102 2.11.1906 p ~54. Engg v 822.11.1906 p 592; RM 12.1906 P 508 (where the ' spellmg of his second name, Mackenzie, is confinned).

Soley, A.
Resident engineer Beira & Mashonaland Railway in 1903. See Locomotive Mag., 1903, 9, 252

Sopwith, Thomas
Born on 3 January 1803 and baptised in Newcastle. died in London on 16 January 1879. Apprenticed to his father who was a successful cabinet maker. On completion of his apprenticeship he worked for Joseph Dickinson of Alston surveying lead mines. Based in Newcastle from 1832 he was associated with surveys for roads (Newcastle to Otterburn) and railways including the Durham Junction Railway in 1833 and the Blaydon, Gateshead and Hebburn Railway in 1834 and was associated with George Stephenson on the Sambre and Meuse Railway. He was made an FRS in 1845. Direct descendent pioneer constructor of aircraft. B.W. Richardson. Life of Thomas Sopwith. 1891. R.W. Rennison in Chrimes and Rennison Trans Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203.

Souttar, Robinson
Born in 1848; died 1912. Associated with Calcutta tramway system and presebted an ICE paper on street tramway construction. See Andrew Dow Railway p. 207

Stevenson, Francis
Born in Scotland on 27 August 1827; died in  London on 1 February 1902. Educated at Edinburgh Academy. At 13 articled to R.B. Dockray, then engineer on the London & Birmingham Railway and in 1843 he became a member of the engineering staff. Engaged on construction of Northampton-Peterborough line which opened in 1845, also resident engineer on Coventry-Nuneaton Railway, completed in 1850. Later transferred to Euston. 1855 became assistant to William Baker whom he succeeded as chief engineer in charge of all new works and parliamentary business from January l879. His extensive knowledge of the history of the LNWR induced the directors to appoint him in 1886 to take charge of the maintenance of the whole system. Stevenson was a lover of nature and of old buildings and always strove to blend his works into the landscape. John Marshall.

Stewart, Allan Duncan
Born on 7 March 1831; died at Innerhadden or lnverhadden (alternate names), near Pitlochry, Perthshire, on 31 October 1894. Graduated in mathematics (ninth wrangker) at Cambridge 1853. From 1855 to 1858 he was articled to Benjamin Hall Blyth. From 1859 to 1860 he acted as resident engineer during the construction of the Banffshire Railway and a section of Portpatrick Railway. In 1861 he began to practice as a civil engineer in Edinburgh. During the next twenty years he prepared parliamentary plans for, and laid out, various railways, including Ascot-Aldershot, and Chapel-en-le-Frith to Buxton. Stewart was extensively employed as assistant to Thomas Bouch in the construction of several iron bridges, his mathematical ability being particularly valuable. For Bouch he prepared the working drawings for the Redheugh Bridge, Newcastle; the whole of the girders for the first Tay bridge (of which the deck girders are still in use on the second bridge); (see also Rapley NBR Study Gp., Issue 68 p. 25; the roofs of Edinburgh Waverley and Dundee stations; and the steel piers, chains and girders for Bouch's proposed Forth Bridge. In 1880 he gave important evidence before the Royal Commissioners on the Tay Bridge disaster. Between 1881 and 1890 Stewart acted as chief assistant engineer for Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker  on the design and construction of the Forth Bridge. He then practised in Westminster and obtained, in conjunction with J.M. Maclaren and W. Dunn, the first prize of 500 guineas in the competition for designs for the Wembley Tower. While engaged with Baker on this he became ill and died. John Marshall. also Anon in Chrimes.. Also in Charles McKean Battle for the North who notes that he employed techniques in structural analysis developed in Germany and that he had been Resident Engineer on the Caledonian Railway.

Storey, Thomas
Became a colliery viewer in 1808, but became resident civil engineer to the Stockton & Darlington Railway: designed the skew bridge over the River Gaunless described in ICE paper by "J" Storey (this may be an error in the Proceedings, or possibly a relative with same surname. He became principal engineer of the Great North of England Railway between 1836 and 1840 when he was dismissed for the failure of several bridges: nevertheless he served as a consultant to at least two railways in the North East including the Whitby & Pickering Railway (Dawn Smith).

Strachan, James
Born in Methlick, Aberdeenshire in 1834: pupil of Smith, town surveyor of Aberdeen and worked for Alexander Gibb of the Great North of Scotland Railway between 1861 and 1864. He then went abroad as an assistant engineer on the Smyrna & Cassaba Railway. On his return to Britain in 1866 he worked as a contractor's engineer and agent for four years before going to India in 1869 to work on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway and later on the Bombay, Baroda & Central Indian Railway and from 1877 as Municipal Engineer in Karachi. It is not known when he died.  Chrimes in Chrimes.

Strachan, John
Born in Aberdeen  on 14 March 1848; died Sydenham on 2 April 1909. He was educated at Robert Gordon's College (Marshall omits the "Robert"), Aberdeen. Apprenticed with John Gibb, engineer of the GNSR. Later engaged on construction of Callander & Oban Railway, having joined the service of Easton Gibb in 1873. He also had charge of the Leyburn & Hawes Railway, Yorkshire, and of the Rhymney Railway into Cardiff and LNWR lines in Staffordshire. Later employed by Thomas Nelson & Co. Afterwards, on his own account, Strachan carried out large works for the LNWR, GWR, LYR, GCR, Cardiff Railway, Barry Railway, TVR, Rhymney Railway, Cambrian Railways. His last works were the Red Wharf Bay line in Anglesey and the Welshpool & Llanfair Railway, and the Oswestry-Llangynog line. After the death of his wife in 1908 he moved to Sydenham. John Marshall. .

Stubbs, William Henry
Born in Spalding possibly in October 1847; died Blackpool 21 October 1890. Articled to his uncle Richard Johnson, engineer of the GNR. 1869-70 engaged as assistamt engineer on the Wood Green-Enfield branch and in 1870 appointed resident engineer on the Bourne-Sleaford line. In 1871-2 he performed preliminary surveys for the GNR Derbyshire and Staffordshire extensions and was appointed resident engineer under Johnson for the first 20 miles from Colwick to Pinxton including Mapperley tunnel, 1,132 yards long, the cutting and tunnel through the magnestan limestone at Watnall, and the Nutbrook viaduct. In July 1877 he was appinted engineer of the NSR until 11 Jube 1886 when he became engineer of the MSLR on the retirement of Charles Sacre. In 1889 he became ill and never fully recovered his health. John Marshall.

Studholme, John
Born 1787; died at his estate, Morton Head, Carlisle, on 14 September 1847; buried at Grinsdale the following week. Land surveyor, undertook many surveys for Enclosure and Tithe Awards; financial interest in the Blenkinsopp Coal and Lime Company; work on agricultural improvements included introduction of tile land drains into the county of Cumberland. Died . Rennison, R.W.  The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and its engineers; 1829­1862. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203-33.

Sutherland, Alexander
Designer of the Cefn Coed viaduct near Merthyr which enabled the Brecon & Merthyr Railway to reach Merthyr. No longer in use as a railway structure, but aas regarded as beautiful preserved as part of a walking and cycling trail.

Swanwick, Frederick
Born Chester on 1 October 1810; died Bournemouth 15 November 1885. Educated at Leeds and University of Edinburgh. 1829 articled to George Stephenson, becoming also his second in succession to T.L. Gooch. At the opening of the LMR in 1830 Swanwick drove Arrow. During 1832-6 he assisted George Stephenson on the Whitby & Pickering Railway and from July 1834 he was given supervision of the work. During 1836-40 Swanwick was engaged on the North Midland Railway from Derby to Leeds. He also surveyed the York & North Midland and Sheffield-Rotherham Railways. Also in 1836 Swanwick gave evidence before the Commons committees on all these lines and on the Derby & Birmingham. During the autumn of 1845 Swanwick worked almost continuously, hardly sleeping. On the formation of the Midland Railway in 1844 he took charge of all newly projected lines under W.H. Barlow. These included Nottingham-Mansfield, 1848; Nottingham-Lincoln; Erewash Valley; Pinxton-Mansfield; and the junction line between the MSLR and the MR at Sheffield (Wicker) in 1846-7. In addition Swanwick was engaged in preparing several bills for lines which were not built immediately. Throughout his working life he worked long hours, often twice round the clock. John Marshall. and Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes.

Swinburne, Thomas
Born near Newcastle upon Tyne on 31 January 1813; died Houghton, Lancs, on 8 January 1881. His father Robert Swinburne was employed for fifty years on a coal waggonway under Lord Ravensworth. He left school in 1825 and in 1829, at the request of George Stephenson, went to work on the Bolton & Leigh Railway where his brother Ralph had contracted to lay rails from Hulton Colliery to Leigh. Swinburne remained in charge of B & L permanent way until 1838 when he was engaged by Peter Sinclair, secretary of both the B & L and the Preston & Walton tramway, to take charge of the latter, which linked the two portions of the Lancaster Canal across the Ribble valley at Preston. When it closed in 1842 he was transferred to the Bolton & Preston Railway of which Sinclair was also secretary. In 1843 this was transferred to the North Union Railway. In 1846, when the NUR was absorbed by the LNWR and Manchester & Leeds Railway Swinburne transferred to the Blackburn & Preston Railway of which Sinclair was secretary and manager. This became part of the ELR in 1846. Swinburne remained permanent way engineer on the ELR until 1859 when it was amalgamated with the LYR on which he remained a permanent way engineer until his death. In 1849-50 he was an engineer on the Huddersfield-Penistone line. A stone carving of his head was installed at Berry Brow station nr Huddersfield; it is now in the NRM, York. Swinburne was responsible for many improvements in permanent way, signalling and point operation which became widely applied. John Marshall, The Lancashire & Yorkshire R, Vol 1, 1969. John Marshall

Sykes, William
Born on 27 September 1815 at Cortworth, Wentworth in Yorkshire; he died in Canada on 3 April 1872. He was apprenticed as a builder to an uncle employed by Earl Fitzwilliam. He became involved in railway building, probably as a sub-contractor on the North Midland Railway and later on the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway. In the early 1840s he worked on improvements  to the Shannon. In 1846 with Wardrop he worked on two contractss for the Glasgow, Dumfries & Carlisle Railway. He then moved to Canada including work on the first Canadian tunnel at Brockville. He finall worked on the Canada Southern Railway on whih he died due to the severity of the cold. Chrimes in Chrimes

Surnames beginning "T"

Tate, Peter
Born in Newcastle in 1792; died there on 20 February 1879. Trained as a carpenter but employed as a sub-engineer by the Newcastle & Carlisle Railway. Credited with introducing the railway turntable at Carlisle c1862 and for a mechanism to work level crossing gates. See Rennison Trans Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203

Terris, Alexander Key
Chief Civil Engineer, Eastern Region of British Railways from January 1955 to July 1965: proponent of Jarrah wood sleepers (Johnson and Long p. 330): New tunnels near Potters Bar Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs., 18, 289-304 Paper No. 6511. Discussion on continental railway civil engineering practice. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs., 1952, 1, 402-18

Thompson, Benjamin
Born at Eccleshall in 1779; moved to Aberdare c1800 where he established blast furnaces and rolling mills, but by 1811 was managing partner of Bewicke Main colliery in County Durham and Fawdon colliery, Newcastle, and died at Gateshead on 19 April 1867. Inventor of system of coal drops in 1812 and patented (Woodcroft) a reciprocating system for rope-hauled waggonways: 4602/1821 Facilitating the conveyance of carriages along iron and wood railways, tramways and other roads.  Established Birtley Iron Works and Wylam Iron Works (latter with his brother George). Woodcroft also lists patent on iron working. Rennison, R.W.  The Newcastle and Carlisle Railway and its engineers; 1829­1862. Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2001, 72, 203-33.

Thompson, J. Taylor
Chief Civil Engineer North Eastern Region, later London Midland Region. Comments on qualities of Robert Stephenson and Brunel. 1938 paper on railway track works for high speeds and rather obscure ICE paper

Townshend, Thomas
Born in 1771; died in 1846, Contractor for Madeley Contract from Crewe southwards to Whitmore of Grand Junctin Railway. See Fell, Backtrack, 2017, 31, 208. Online sources indicate that he failed on a contract in Tring cutting on the London & Birmingham Railway and had been associated with a successful deep cutting on the Birmingham Canal.

Underwood, John
Born January 1814; died Nottingham 15 August 1893. Began with J.U. Rastrick preparing plans and sections for part of the London-Brighton Railway and later became resident engineer for the section including Merstharn tunnel. In 1845 Rastrick, then too busy, handed over to Underwood the completion of the Nottingham & Grantham Railway, which opened on 15 July 1850, the only section built under the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston & Eastern Junction Railway Act. Nearly twenty five years later Underwood was to build the Ambergate-Codnor Park line of the MR, which opened 1 May 1875, along almost exactly the same course as the original Ambergate line. Underwood took into parrnership Andrew Johnston, and for several years they practised as engineers in Nottingham. On his appointment as chief engineer of the MR in 1858 J.S. Crossley induced Underwood to join his staff. At this time the MR was extending in many directions and Underwood was kept busy. Under Crossley he carried out Mansfield-Worksop, opened 1875; Cudworth-Barnsley including the large iron viaduct near Hamsley, opened  1869; Chesterfield-Sheffield, opened  1870; Mangotsfield-Bath, opened 1869; and branches in Derbyshire and the West Riding. The greatest project was the Settle & Carlisle line, begun in 1869 and opened 1876. Following Crossley's retirement in 1875 Underwood was appointed engineer in charge of new construction: works included Nottingham-Melton Mowbray (1879); Skipton-Ilkley (1888); the new approach into Birmingham from the west (1885), which placed Birmingham station on the route from Derby to Bristol. He also constructed several MR lines around Manchester and Liverpool and was responsible for works in London such as Poplar Dock and its rail connections, the depots in Whitecross Street, the vast extension of Somers Town goods station on Euston Road and at St Pancras where he covered an area of about 10 acres with iron girders on columns to support one goods yard above another, using 20,000 tons of iron. He retired in 1889 because of failing sight. He was a man of genial and unassuming manners and was highly regarded by all his staff. His work was always thorough; John Gough in Chrimes..

Upcott, Frederic Robert
Born in Cullompton, Devon on 28b August 1847; died in Westminser on 15 October 1918. Educated at Sherborne Scool and King's College, London. Joined Indian Public Works Department and posted to Indus Valley State Railway in 1869 and gradually rose to higher positions. In 1906 he joined in the Indian gauge controvery presenting ICE Paper 3586 which generated a great deal of discusion. He was highly critical of the creation of Tata Steel. Knighted in 1906. Very extensive biography by M. Kaye Kerr in BDCE3.

Vaile, Henry Purser
Patent GB 7487 Rails for railraods. 25 November 1837 (Woodcroft). Andrew Dow Railway p. 277 states that claims rails which would limit hunting by railway vehicles.

Valentine, J.C.
District Engineer, NER, Darlington from 1903. Hoole. Railway Wld., 1961, 22, 94.

Vivian, Henry Anthony
Born on 31 January 1824 in Cambourne into famous Cornish mining family. Moved to South America and worked under Vignoles on Bahia & Sao Francisco Railway in Brazil and then worked in association with Edward Woods on railways in Chile. He died in Falmouth on 25 January 1904 having returned to England in 1898. Chrimes in Chrimes.

Surnames beginning "W"

Wakefield, Henry
Died 18 April, 1899. He had begun his engineering career in 1841 as a pupil at the Great Western Steamship Co's works at Bristol, during the construction of the iron steamship Great Britain. In 1847, he was placed under Brunel’s assistant, William Bell, who was at that time Resident Engineer on the Bristol Docks. In the following year he was removed to Mr. Brunel’s London office, where he was principally engaged in making drawings for the Chepstow and other iron railway bridges. During the years 1849 to 1851 Wakefield was employed by G.D. Bishopp and by Bryan Donkin and Co., in making designs and in superintending the construction of the 'Disk' steam engine and its application to various uses. At the beginning of 1852 he re-entered the employment of Brunel, and was placed in charge of the inspection of the construction of the steamships and engines of the Australian Royal Mail Steam Navigation Company’s fleet. From 1853 to 1855 he was employed in Brunel’s office on drawings and designs, principally for large iron bridges and dock gates; in inspecting the permanent way, materials and rolling stock of the Adelaide City and Port Railway; and, in conjunction with John Brunton, in superintending the construction of army hospital buildings in Turkey, during the Crimean War. In 1855 he was placed by Brunel in charge under T.H. Bertram, of the alterations and strengthening of the iron bridges of the Birmingham and Wolverhampton Railway, which then became part of the Great Western system. In the following year he was appointed joint resident engineer, with C.E. Gainsford, in charge of the construction, testing, floating the main trusses, lifting and completion of the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash, under R.P. Brereton, Brunel being Engineer-in-chief. On the completion of that bridge in the summer of 1859, he returned to Brunel’s office in London, and was placed by him in charge of the inspection of the materials for the Eastern Bengal and the Victorian Railways. He was then appointed to superintend for the contractors, Bray and Waddington, of Leeds, the construction and ereation of the ironwork of the Victoria Railway Bridge at Pimlico, across the River Thames. In the autumn of 1860, Wakefield began to practise on his own account. In 1861 and 1862 he made the drawings and designs of the hydraulic coal lifts and fittings for the Briton Ferry Docks for R.P. Brereton, and in 1863 superintended for that gentleman the repairing and refitting of the Great Eastern Steamship after the accident in Montank Bay. From 1861 to the time of his death he acted as inspecting engineer for constructional and general works to the Crown Agents for the Colonies. In that capacity he designed and superintended the construction in England of numerous iron bridges, lighthouses, dredging vessels, marine engines and dredging machinery for Bermuda, the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, Jamaica, Mauritius, Natal, Trinidad and other Colonies. He inspected large quantities of railway materials, permanent way fittings, bridges, station roofs, etc., for several colonial railways. He also advised as to the projects and designs for bridges, markets and many other public works required by the Resident Colonial Engineers in many of the Colonies. He was elected a Member of the Institution on the 5 March, 1878.

Walrond-Smith, Thomas
Engineer of the Glasgow & North Western Railway

Waring, Charles
Born at Eccleshall in Yorkshire in 1827 into contracting family: his father John Waring (died 1876) and two of his brothers: William and Henry were in the family business. The firm promoterd several contractor's railways inclcluding the Bristol Port and Pier Railway (see Locomotive Mag, 1925, 31, 354); the Dorset Central Railway and the Peterborough, Wisbech & Sutton Railway. Charles Waring died at Wycombe Abbey on 26 August 1887,. P.S.M. Cross-Rudkin in Chrimes. and in Early main line railways page 130 et seq

Waring, Francis John
Born Southsea, 25 October 1843;  died 6 February 1924. Educated at Kings’s College School, London. Became a pupil of W.J. Kingsbury in 1860 and during this time performed work for R. Sinclair of the Great Eastern Railway. Served in India professionally, 1863–72, working with John Brunton on the Indus Valley Railway; Brazil, 1873–75 working on extensions to the Dom Pedro Railway; From 1875 he entered service of Government of Ceylon as a civil engineer, and was Chief Resident Engineer of Government Railway Extensions in that Colony, 1882–96. Paper on extension of Ceylon Government Railway. He investigated a phyical link to the railway of India. CMG 1893; FRGS; MInstCE. Chrimes in BDCE3

Webb, Sir Arthur Lewis
Born on 27 October 1860, Educated at Coopers Hill College. Career in irrigation in India. In 1895 transferred to Egypt and from 1899 Inspector General of Irrigation in Egypt. Awarded CMG in 1905 and KCMG in 1912. Died 15 March 1921 at his home in London. See Chrimes in BDCE3 and more improbably Locomotive Mag., 1921, 27, 55 when acting as inspector for NBL locomotives for Soudan Government Railways

Webb, Edward Brainerd
Born in either Leicester or Stowmarket on 3 August 1820. Articles to John Hague at his East London factory, then apprentice at Jones & Potts of Newton-le-Willows. Employed by Marc Brunel on the Thames Tunnel. In 1846 he was appointed acting engineer on the Londonderry & Coleraine Railway. In 1852 he went to Brazil to work on the Maua Railway between Rio de Janeiro and Petropolis. This was described in a Instn Civil Engrs paper. He became involved in a proposal to construct a ship railway to link the Gulf of Suez with the Mediterranean and in proposed railways for Puerto Rico. He was Consulting Engineer to the Buenos Airies & Campana Railway in Argentina and the North Western Railway of Uruguay. He was Engineer-in-Chief of the Paraguassa Steam Tramway in Brazil which likked the port of Bahia with diamond mines. He was involved with the Baranquilla Railway in Colombia, a proposal for a Panama Canal and a Thames crossing below London Bridge. He dired in Aix-la-Chapelle on 26 May 1879. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes..

Welby, Richard Flint
Born in Uttoxeter on 13 December 1839. Apprenticed to Thorniwell & Warren of Burton-on-Trent. In 1863 he joined with James Brunlees to work on the inclines being constructed on the Sao Paulo Railway in Brazil. He eventually became the Locomotive Superintendent of this line for seven years. In 1873 he became general manager and engineer of the Ituana Railway, a narrow gauge line which linked Itu with the Sao Paulo Railway. He set up as a consultant engineer in Rio de Janeiro in 1877. Ill-health forced a return to England in 1889 where he died on 25 May 1906. Mike Chrimes in Chrimes.

Westhofen, William
Mechanical engineer from Mainz initially responsible for foundations and piers of the Forth Bridge and then made responsible for the Inchgarvie tower, the most difficult and dangerous of the three cantileversForth Bridge and wrote his experience for Engineering 28 February c1890 which reprinted it. Charles McKean Battle for the North

Wemyss, Robert
Born: 5 March 1865; died: Royal Infirmary, Glasgow on 30 July 1955. He was the son of John Wemyss, Inland Revenue Officer and Phyllis Pate. He served his articles with Duncan McNaughtan, Architect. After completing his apprenticeship he worked as assistant for McNaughtan, for Burnet Son & Campbell where he was principally employed on railway work, for William Leiper, and for other unidentified firms before. He spent his holidays travelling and sketching in England, Scotland and Ireland. He commenced independent practice in Glasgow in January 1896, and was admitted LRIBA on 24 June 1912, proposed by John Bennie Wilson and the Glasgow Institute of Architects, which he had joined in 1907. At the time of his admittance to the RIBA he was working in offices at 103 Bath Street, Glasgow, and living at 7 Glenan Gardens, Helensburgh. In addition to his known works, his nomination papers state that he had designed domestic and commercial buildings in Glasgow, but none of these has yet been identified.

Whipple, Squire
Whipple  was born on 16 September 1804 in Hardwick, Massachusetts, USA. His family moved to New York when he was thirteen. He studied at Fairfield Academy, but graduated from Union College after only one year. He has become known as the father of iron bridge building in America. His designs were implemented in numerous bridges, both large through truss bridges, as well as prefabricated bowstring arch bridges, which became the standard design for Erie Canal crossings; using an economical mix of wrought iron for tension members and cast iron in compression. Another such arch is the Shaw Bridge, the only known Whipple bowstring at its original location and the only know "double" believed extant, the only "a structure of outstanding importance to the history of American engineering and transportation technology." There are at least four other Whipple bowstrings standing in Central New York state, and one in Newark, Ohio. He died on 15 March 1888 in Albany. Wikipedia 2012-11-26
Patents
USP 2,064 Bowstring iron-bridge truss. 24 April 1841.
USP 134,338 Lift draw bridge. 24 December 1872.
Book
A work on bridge building: consisting of two essays, the one elementary and general, the other giving original plans and paractical details for iron and wooden bridges. 1847

White, Bruce Gordon
Born on 5 February 1885, White saw military service in Europe during WW1 as a Major in the Royal Engineers; he was involved in the design and construction of Richborough military port near Sandwich in Kent; the port was notable for being equipped with the UK's first electric gantry cranes for cargo handling. White was appointed MBE in 1919. Bruce White joined his father's practice in 1919 together with his brother Colin White in 1923. On his father's death Bruce White became senior partner. After WW2 Bruce White was knighted, and the practice became known as Sir Bruce White, Wolfe Barry and Partners. During WW2 White returned to military service with the rank of brigadier. He held the posts of Director of Ports and IWT at the War Office and Deputy Director, Department of Transportation Tn(5). He was part of the team involved in planning and designing of the "artificial" Mulberry harbours, having been responsible for the development of the four-legged floating pontoons and the floating roadways that became the Spud pier heads and the Whale piers of these two harbours. These were used to supply Allied forces in France after the D-day landings in Normandy. In this capacity he was chairman of the Harbours committee, which was principally made up of civilian consultant civil engineers who undertook the design of Mulberry. He was appointed a CBE in 1943 and a KBE in 1944. After the war his company was responsible for the design of the Chiswick flyover, Bhavnagar Port, Bombay Marine Oil Terminal, Damman Port, Muara Port, the UK's first container terminal at Tilbury's Berth 30 and Singapore's first container berth. He was also involved in a scheme to adapt the Forth railway bridge to accommodate road traffic (see Backtrack, 2016, 30, 398). White worked into his nineties. He died on 29 September 1983. Paper (relevant to railways) Wikipedia 2013-11-18:
The electrification of the Madras suburban section of the South Indian Railway. Min. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs, 1932, 234, 225-59.

Widdop, Frederick Charles
Born on 21 March 1877 into family of early Wellington (New Zealand) pioneers. After a course at the Wellington School of Design entered th railway service as a cadet in the locomotive branch., but then transferred to civil engineering. From 1908 to 1914 he was Westland District Engineer; then to District Engineer Wellington. In 1924 became Chief Engineer of the New Zealand Government Railways. Retired in September 1931. Photograph Locomotive Mag., 1927, 33, 118

Williams, C.C.
Contractor for Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway. In charge of providing locomotive until replaced by David Joy. See Locomotive Mag., 1915, 21, 127.

Willox, William
Born at Park Lomnay in Aberdeenshire on 27 April 1857; died 7 April 1928. Educated Aberdeen University in mathematics; pupil with Bell & Miller, Glasgow-based civil engineering practice. In 1881 he went to Brazil to work on Conde d'Eu Railway. On return to UK he worked on Parliamentary preparation foe an extension to Aberdeen waterworks and then for the Great Eastern Railway. From 1887 he worked for nearly five years for Don Edmundo Sykes who had a cocession for the Manila. Railway. On return he worked for the contractor Joseph Firbank. In 1896 he became resident engioneer for the Earlswood to Stoats Nest extension of the LBSCR and then District Engineer for the Northern District whilst electrification was being advanced. In 1906 he became Engineer of the Metropolitan Railway.  President of the Permanant Way Institution: paper on wear railway wear due to electric traction. Biography in "Chrimes" Volume 3. ICE Paper 4406 All-electric automatic power signalling on the Metropolitan Railway. 1922. Memorial see Humm J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2015, 38, 252

Willox, Wiliam Arthur
Born in 1892 (son of above?).Editor of The Railway.Magazine and Associate. Editor of The Railway. Gazette. Private Address: 24 Chelsea Gardens; S.W.1. Career: with Metropolitan Rly., 1912-14, on new construction; served with Royal Engineers during WW1; then with Greek Department. of Reconstruction, 1919-21; then L.B. & S.C. Rly. (later Southern Rly.), Engineer's Department., from 1921 to 1931. via Grace's Guide also Cooper Railway journalism in the thirties. Railway Wld, 1978, 39, 17-19.

Wilmer, Horace
Born 2 November 1851, Dieppe, France; died 10 August 1936 at Portsmouth, Hampshire. Joined Great Eastern Railway in 1878. Retired 1916 (National Archive RAIL 1156).: formerly designated engineer, called Chief Civil Engineer Locomotive Mag., 1915, 21, 120.

Wilson, Charles Stanfield
Born in Bradford in April 1844. In 1871 census he was lodging in Mansfield and listed as a civil engineer. In 1878 he had arrived at Sharnbrook and lived there with his family until 1883. He was educated at Bootham School in York and was probably a Quaker. See Butler. The Wymington deviation. Backtrack, 2022, 36, 314

Wood, Ralph
Stone mason who constructed Causey Arch in County Durham completed in 1727. See Skempton and Peirson Backtrack, 2011, 25, 350.

Wood, Sancton
Born April 1815 in Hackney. Educated at a small private school in Devon, and then moved to a school at Hazelwood, Birmingham, run by T.W. Hill whose son Rowland Hill (1795-1879) was author of the penny postal system. The school was run ‘To leave as much as possible, all power in the hands of the boys themselves’ a philosophy that failed to stimulate young Sancton Wood into serious study. Nevertheless his interest in drawing and family influence gained him a pupillage in the office of his cousin Sir Robert Smirke RA (1780-1867), followed by employment with Sydney Smirke RA (1798-1877). His contemporaries recalled his quiet retiring nature, sometimes excitable, but always courteous. Wood's classical training in architecture and presentation, learned in Smirke's office, gained him early recognition. In 1837 he designed one of London's first railway termini, at Shoreditch for the Eastern Counties Railway. Budget restraint limited the scope of work, but success in competitions followed, beginning with a prize for Ipswich station. Then in 1845 he headed a field of sixty-five competitors for the design of Kingsbridge terminus and company offices, Dublin (now known as Heuston station). The magnificent two-storey office block, nine bays wide by five bays deep, is dominated by attached Corinthian columns between the first-floor pedimented windows. The enclosing single-storey wing walls to the platforms are linked to the office block by an intervening domed turret at each corner. In 1846 he won the £100 prize for Blackburn station. Links with Irish railways led to further work for the Great Southern and Western, between Dublin and Cork, and the Limerick Junction line. Other railway commissions included stations on the Rugby and Stamford line (1846), and Syston and Peterborough route (1847). Wood was elected an associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1841, an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1848, and an associate of the Institution of Surveyors, also in 1848. Commercial buildings, schools, churches, and estate development, principally in the London area, were credited to him. In 1850 Wood, his wife, and their two sons moved to 11 Putney Hill, London, a detached house of his own design where Wood died on 18 April 1886. From ODNB entry Oliver F.J. Carter

Woodhouse, Henry
Originally in charge of North-Eastern Division of LNWR, and in 1852 was appointed Permanent Way Engineer fr the whole system based at Stafford. M.C. Reed. Wells notes that present at inquest into Wootton Bridge collapse of 1861.

Wragge, Edmund
Born in Old Swinford near Stourbridge in 1837. Educated at Rossall School and became a pupil of Fox, Henderson & Co.  He surveyed the East Kent Railwsay in 1858 and was sent off to South Africa in 1859 where he worked on the Cape Town & Wellington Railway. In 1862 he was Resident Engineer on the Battersea to Victoria line in London and he also surveyed a roiute for a light railway in the Rother Valley. In 1866 he set up to practice on his own and became Resident Engineer for the Waterloo & Whitehall Railway which attempted to construct a sunken tube undr the Thames with th trains to be driven by pneumatic power. This was abandoned in 1868. He unsuccessfully participated in a survey for a railway to cross Costa Rica to link the Atlantic with the Pacific. In 1869 he moved to Canada and was Chief Engineeer of the Toronto Grey & Bruce Railway and the Toronto & Nipissing Railway. These were 3ft 6in gauge lines and used Fairlie articulated locomotives for freight and the 4-6-0 type for passenger trains. These are described in Min. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs., 1877, 48, 252-6. He subsequently became the Toroto Area Manager of the Grand Trunk Railway and later arbitrated between the VCandian Pacific Railway and the Candian Government. He was a consulting engineer for the difficult London entry of the Great Central Railway and this is described in Min. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs., 1901, 143, 84. He died in Toronto on 26 November 1929. T.R. Clarke in Chrimes.

Wright, George Hustwait
Born on 13 February 1834 at Girtford Bridge in Bedfordshire. Educated at Biggleswade; then articled to John Bell. Surveyed railways in England and Portugal. Then joined his brother William in India on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway where he held various posts. In October 1881 he became Engineer-in-Chief of the Egyptian Railways where his work was interrupted by the Arabi rebellion in 1882. He died of typhoid fever at Whitchurch in Oxforshire on 11 December 1889. M. Kaye Kerr and J. Ian Kerr in Chrimes

Wyatt, Sir Digby
Born on 20 July 1820 near Devizes. Involved both with the original Crystal Palace and its reconstruction at Sydenham. Responsible for the decorative ironwork in Paddington Station and the extension of Bristol Temple Meads. Appointed architect to the Council of India in 1855 and responsible for the ironwork on three major railway bridges there. Died on 21 May 1877 at Dimlands Castle, near Cowbridge in Glamorgan in 1877. Steven Brindle in Chrimes and Paul Waterhouse, revised John Martin Robinson in ODNB

Wylde, James
Born in Bushey on 29 November 1824; died in Kumara in New Zealand in 1908. Educated Westminster School. Articled to Sir Charles Fox and moved to the London Works in Birmingham. At the end of two years he was appointed Resident Engineer on railway works at Derby. Subsequently he was engaged on railway works in Scotland including the building of an early bridge over the River Tay. He married Catherine Brookhouse, Fox's sister-in-law, and was made manager of Fox, Henderson Co.'s large engineering works at Renfrew. There he oversaw such works as the ironwork for the Kiev suspension bridge over the Dnieper River and buildings for the Great London Exhibition of 185l. After dissolution of Fox Henderson Co., Wylde was made redundant and became resident engineer at the Great Western Railway station at Paddington, and so worked under I.K. Brunel. His wife died shortly afterwards, leaving two children, Harry and Lucy. He moved to Denmark, becoming engineer to the water and gas works in Odense. There he read an article giving glowing accounts of life in the colonies and left for New Zealand on 10 July 1853, landing at Lyttleton on 18 October. As the first immigrants had arrived only three years previously there was little opportunity for engineering enterprise and so he commenced farming. In 1855 he married Clara Rich. In 1856 he is recorded as being engineer surveyor and was for a time engaged on the construction of the Lyttleton Tunnel, the first railway tunnel in New Zeaiand which was opened in 1864. On 31 January 1862, he was appointed Assistant Engineer for Christchurch and the northern districts of Canterbury, resident in Kaiapoi, with responsibility for roads, railways, bridges and swamp drainage. He had been elected to the Provincial Council and been chairman of several committees. He was described at this time as young and well proportioned, with a pleasant round face, broad forehead and brown curly hair. He resigned from the staff of the Provincial Council on 28 May 1864 to carry on private works. He took up employment with the Government Public Works Department on 7 March 1871 and was stationed at Greymouth as District Inspector of Works. He accepted an appointment as Engineer and Secretary to a tramway company. In 1877 he took up an appointment as Town Clerk and Engineer for the Kumara Town Board. He continued in this position until he retired in 1900. His second wife died in 1902. He continued to live in Kumara until his death in 1908. He had a further seven sons and six daughters. William H. Pitt in Chrimes.

2021-05-03