William Forbes Spear

“ Donkin devoted much time and labour to scientific research, and proved to be an able, indefatigable, and accurate investigator. His researches were especially directed to the design and construction of heat-engines and steam-boilers and to the application to them of scientific tests. One of the first to practise systematic testing of the efficiency of steam-engines, he introduced a method of determining steam-consumption by measuring the condensed water flowing over a tumbling bay or weir. ”

“ From 1869 Baker was also associated with Fowler in investigating and advising upon engineering projects in Egypt. One of these was for a railway between Wady Haifa and Shendy and a ship incline at Assuan, and another (about 1875) was a project for a sweet-water canal between Alexandria and Cairo, which was intended to be used for both irrigation and navigation but was not carried out. Thenceforward Baker played a prominent part in the engineering work which has promoted the material development of the country. ”

“ BELL, HORACE (1839–1903) , civil engineer, born in London on 17 June 1839, was son of George Bell, merchant, of Harley Street, London, by his wife Frances Dade, of Norfolk. Educated in France and at Louth, Lincolnshire, he began engineering at fifteen, under Mr. 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. ”

“ The firm was mainly engaged in producing machines and engines of Brotherhood's invention. In 1872 he introduced the Brotherhood engine, in which three single-acting cylinders are arranged at angles of 120 around a central chamber. In this chamber is a single crankshaft acted upon by three connecting-rods, the other ends of which are attached to the inner sides of their respective pistons. The engine can be used with steam, water, or compressed air as the working medium. ”

“ In 1880 new sources of water-supply had become necessary, and Deacon projected a scheme, which was adopted, for the utilisation of the river Vyrnwy in North Wales. Thereupon he resigned the duties of borough engineer in order to devote himself entirely to those of water engineer, which he discharged until 1890. ”

“ He was a member of committees appointed by the Institution to report upon standards of thermal efficiency for steam-engines and on the tabulation of results of steam-engine and boiler trials. He was also a member of research committees of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on the steam-jacket, on marine engines, on gas-engines, and on steam-engines. In conjunction with (Sir) Alexander Kennedy he made exhaustive tests of different types of boilers, the results of which were published in 'Engineering' from 1890 onwards, and he was author of 'The Heat Efficiency of Steam Boilers' (1898) . ”

“ But Dredge soon gave up practical engineering for engineering journalism. From the start in Jan. 1866 of the weekly periodical 'Engineering,' which was founded by Zerah Colburn on his retirement from the editorship of the 'Engineer' in 1865, Dredge helped in illustrating and occasionally wrote for the paper. On Colburn' s death in 1870 Dredge and W. H. Maw, the sub-editor, became joint editors and proprietors. Dredge helped actively in the management until May 1903, when he was disabled by paralysis. ”

“ From 1865 to 1871 he practised at Liverpool as a consulting engineer, making so special a study of the Mersey estuary as to become a recognised authority in regard to it. He also lectured on civil engineering and mechanics at Queen's College, Liverpool. From 1871 to 1880 he was borough and water engineer of Liverpool. ”

“ Robert Stephenson and Thomas Elliott Harrison [q. v.] , resident engineer of the Royal Border bridge, one of the largest stone bridges in Great Britain, which carries the North Eastern railway across the Tweed at Berwick, on twenty-eight semi-circular arches, each of sixty-one feet six inches span. It was opened by Queen Victoria in August 1850, and in 1851 Bruce presented an account of it to the Institution of Civil Engineers (Proc. x. 219) , for which he was awarded a Telford medal. ”

“ Baker solved the difficult problem of uniting new to old masonry so as to form a solid structure, in the conditions obtaining in the Assuan dam, by building the upper portion of the dam as an independent structure which could be united to the lower by grouting with cement when it had ceased to settle and contract. Just before his death Baker went to Egypt to settle the plans and contract for this work (since completed) , as well as preliminary plans for a bridge across the Nile at Boulac. ”

“ DREDGE, JAMES (1840–1906) , civil engineer and journalist, born in Bath on 29 July 1840, was younger son, by his wife Anne Vine, of James Dredge of that place, an engineer who designed and patented a form of suspension bridge with inclined suspension rods carrying the roadway. His elder brother, William, under whom he served articles, was also an engineer. ”

“ When, towards the end of July 1857, the native troops in the cantonments at Dinapore, about twenty-five miles from Arrah, mutinied and deserted, Boyle fortified a detached two -story house fifty feet square standing in the same compound as his own private residence, and provisioned it to withstand a siege. Here on Sunday, 26 July, sixteen Europeans and about forty Sikhs took refuge, and the following morning the mutineers, having crossed the river Son and taken possession of Arrah, besieged the little garrison. ”

“ Under his direction the mileage of good roads was extended from 800 to near 2000; 110 bridges and most of the modern public buildings were built, and works for water-supply, drainage, and lighting were carried out. ”

“ In 1889 he was elected an honorary member of the Societe des Ingenieurs civils de France. In 1881 he and Sir Frederick Bramwell [q. v. Suppl. II] were appointed the first civil members of the ordnance committee. He was one of the judges of the centennial exhibition at Philadelphia in 1875; was elected a member of the Athenaeum club honoris causa in 1881; and was a lieut.-colonel in the engineer and railway volunteer staff corps. Barlow practised from 1857 to 1866 at 19 Great George Street, Westminster, and from 1866 onwards at 2 Old Palace Yard. ”

“ He was educated at private schools and at University College, London, and then pursued for two years an engineering course at the École centrale des Arts et Metiers in Paris. From 1856 to 1859 he served three years' apprenticeship in the Bermondsey engineering works of Bryan Donkin & Company, which his grandfather established in 1803. ”

“ He succeeded in obtaining four stages of expansion while using only two cylinders, by means of a combined piston and plunger, to which motion was imparted by a cross-head worked by a pair of reciprocating double-acting steam-cylinders, their valves being again actuated from a crankshaft fitted with a flywheel. ”

“ He married Selina Crawford, daughter of W. Caffin, of the Royal Arsenal, by whom he had four sons and two daughters. His portrait in oils, by the Hon. John Collier, is at the Institution of Civil Engineers.
[Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., vol. cli.; Men and Women of the Time, 1899.] ”

“ Subsequently Fowler and Baker acted as consulting engineers for the first 'tube' railway (the City and South London line, opened in 1890) , and with J. H. Greathead were the joint engineers for the Central London (tube) railway, opened in 1900. In the construction of this line Baker carried out the plan suggested by him five-and-twenty years earlier, of making the line dip down between the stations in order to reduce the required tractive effort (see his articles on urban railways in Engineering, xvii. 1 et seq.) . After Greathead's death in 1896 Baker also acted as joint engineer with Mr. ”

“ In the work on long span bridges he reached the conclusion that the maximum possible span would necessitate the adoption of cantilevers supporting an independent girder the system adopted later for the Forth bridge. ”

“ By his wife Marcia Napier Ogilvy he had issue four sons and five daughters. One son and three daughters survived him.
[Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. cliii. 319; The Times, 11 April 1903; History of Services of the Indian Public Works Department.] ”

“ II] . On the recommendation of Lord Kelvin he was appointed assistant to Cromwell Fleetwood Varley [q. v.] , the engineer to the Atlantic Telegraph Company, and under him he took part in 1865 in the laying of the second Atlantic cable by the Great Eastern steamship. ”