Canal Engineers - William Smith, Thomas Telford, John Smeaton, John Rennie the Elder, James Brindley, William Jessop, John L. Savage, GE (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 38. Chapters: William Smith, Thomas Telford, John Smeaton, John Rennie the Elder, James Brindley, William Jessop, John L. Savage, George Turnbull, James Green, Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds, Benjamin Outram, John Frank Stevens, Hugh Henshall, Thomas Leiper, Thomas Steers, Francis Giles, Thomas Dadford, Jr., Edwin Clark, Edward Leader Williams, John Gilbert, William Bennet, Ximen Bao, William Hamond Bartholomew, William Weston, Canvass White, George W. Buck, George Hayne, George Robert Jebb, Sir Nigel Gresley, 6th Baronet, James Morgan, Henry Berry, Richard Weston, John Hore, Hugues Cosnier, Thomas Oakes, Kanwar Sen, Nicol Hugh Baird, John Dadford, Josias Jessop, Guillaume Boutheroue, Alfred Barrett, David du Bose Gaillard, James Dadford, John Williams. Excerpt: Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE (1757-1834) was a Scottish civil engineer, architect and stonemason, and a noted road, bridge and canal builder. Telford was born on 9 August 1757 at Glendinning, a hill farm 3 miles west of Eskdalemuir Kirk, in the rural parish of Westerkirk, in Eskdale, Dumfriesshire. His father John Telford, a shepherd, died soon after Thomas was born. Thomas was raised in poverty by his mother Janet Jackson (d.1794). At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to a stonemason, and some of his earliest work can still be seen on the bridge across the River Esk in Langholm in the Scottish borders. He worked for a time in Edinburgh and in 1782 he moved to London where (after meeting architects Robert Adam and Sir William Chambers) he was involved in building additions to Somerset House there. Two years later he found work at Portsmouth dockyard and - although still largely self-taught - was extending his talents to the specification, design and management of building projects. In 1787, through his wealthy patron William Pulteney, he became Surveyor of...