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Son of an Eskdale shepherd, Thomas Telford received little education before becoming apprenticed to a stone mason in 1771. After working in Edinburgh and London, he rose to be in charge of constructing the new Commissioner’s house at Portsmouth Naval Dockyard in 1784. Sir William Pulteney, MP for Shrewsbury, commissioned Telford to design and supervise the restoration of Shrewsbury Castle. Appointed as Surveyor of Public Works for the County of Salop in 1787, Telford designed several public buildings, including Shrewsbury Gaol and the Montford and Buildwas bridges, and was responsible for the world’s first substantial cast iron aqueduct, carrying the Shrewsbury Canal over the River Tern at Longdon. In 1793, Telford became the Ellesmere Canal Company’s General Agent, designing aqueducts at Chirk and Pontcysyllte. Between 1803 and 1821 he supervised the construction of over 900 miles of road and 1000 bridges, part of a government-funded programme to alleviate social distress in the Scottish Highlands. Participation in the construction of the Gotha Canal (Sweden), established him as the leading civil engineer of his time, and in 1820 he became the first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Technical mastery was reflected in the construction of the Menai Bridge and the Shrewsbury to Holyhead section of the Holyhead Road. He died in 1834 before completion of his last major project, the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In 2007 an exhibition at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum will commemorate the 250th anniversary of Telford’s birth.

Category: People , Painting

Institute: Ironbridge Gorge Museum

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