Civil engineers, Architects, 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. .

 Steamindex home page

Bell, Thomas
Began railway career in 1828 as engineer of the Fort Clarence & West Hartlepool Harbour Railway: then district engineeer of NER. Loco. Rly Carr. Wagon Rev., 1926, 32, 127

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.

Berkley, 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.

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. He 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.

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 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..

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. 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.

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 .

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.

Crofts, Freeman Wills
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.
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.

Crosbie-Dawson,. George James
Born in Liverpool in 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.

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.

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; 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.

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 contrctor to the Mersey Pneumatic Railway which failed to encourage sufficient finance. He also  formed the Swansea & Mumbles Railway in 1879. Dawn Smith and RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10

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. 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 .

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 constructyion of the Forth Bridge), and chairman in 1882-7.  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).

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.

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 District Railway (Marshall must be incorrect: 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. John Marshall

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..

Grainger, Thomas
Born in Ratho (Midlothian) on 12 November 1794; died Stockton-on-Tees on 25 July 1852. When 16 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 (op 1849), East & West Yorkshire Jn, and Leeds Northern Railways. Works included Money 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)

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 

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.

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 Wahrncliffe Viaduct, Uxbridge Road bridge and Maidenhead bridge. Also responsible for standard gauge Bristol & Gloucester Railway. Michael R. Bailey in Chrimes.

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 Railwy 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 went into partnership with Thomas Summerson in 1853 and manufactured permanent way materials and wagon components. Gillian Cookson in Chrimes.

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.

Surnames beginning letter "Ho"

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.

Hunter, Charles L.
Chief Engineer Cardiff Railway from 1882 until death in 1902: RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10.

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 

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.

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

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 Chied 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..

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 appranticed 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.. .

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

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.

Melville, William
Engineer-in-Chief Glasgow & South Western Railway: responsible for bridges and other works on Glasgow Union Railway also involved with Maidens & Dunure Light Railway: : for which see McConnell and Rankin.

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 lames Brunlees (qv) 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.

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.

Neate, Charles
Born in London in October 1821 and died, presumably in London on 29 May 1911, 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.

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).

Ree, H.S.C.
Chief Engineer Cardiff Railway from 1902 until retirement in 1914: RCTS Locomotives of the Great Western Railway. Part 10.

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.

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. .

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

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