Thomas Telford
Thomas Telford FRS FRSE (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well as harbours and tunnels. Such was his reputation as a prolific designer of highways and related bridges, he was dubbed the Colossus of Roads (a pun on the Colossus of Rhodes), and, reflecting his command of all types of civil engineering in the early 19th century, he was elected as the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a post he held for 14 years until his death.
Thomas Telford
9 August 1757
2 September 1834 (aged 77)
Engineer
Founder and first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1818)
The town of Telford in Shropshire was named after him.
Late career[edit]
Other works by Telford include the St Katharine Docks (1824–28) close to Tower Bridge in central London, where he worked with the architect Philip Hardwick, the Gloucester and Berkeley Ship Canal (today known as the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal), Over Bridge near Gloucester, the second Harecastle Tunnel on the Trent and Mersey Canal (1827), and the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal (today part of the Shropshire Union Canal) – started in May 1826 but finished, after Telford's death, in January 1835. At the time of its construction in 1829, Galton Bridge was the longest single span in the world. Telford surveyed and planned the Macclesfield Canal, which was completed by William Crosley (or Crossley).[14] He also built Whitstable harbour in Kent in 1832, in connection with the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway with an unusual system for flushing out mud using a tidal reservoir. He also completed the Grand Trunk after James Brindley died due to being over-worked.
In 1820, Telford was appointed the first President of the recently formed Institution of Civil Engineers, a post he held until his death.[15]
Freemasonry[edit]
He was Initiated into Freemasonry in Antiquity Lodge, No. 26, (Portsmouth, England) in 1770. This lodge no longer exists. He was a founder member of Phoenix Lodge, No. 257 (also in Portsmouth). Telford designed a room within the George Inn for the lodge.[16] In 1786 he became an affiliate member of Salopian Lodge, No. 262 (Shrewsbury, England).[17]
Telford is commemorated through the naming of a number of sites: