Francis Webb Wentworth-Sheilds (born Sheilds; 8 October 1820 – 18 January 1906) was an Anglo-Irish

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

on the

Sydney Railway Company The Main Suburban railway line is the technical name for the trunk railway line between Redfern railway station and Parramatta railway station in Sydney, Australia, but now generally refers to the section between Redfern and where the Old Main S ...

during its construction but before its opening. In Great Britain and Ireland, Sheilds worked on a number of railway projects, including the then

Dublin and Kingstown Railway The Dublin and Kingstown Railway (D&KR), which opened in 1834, was Ireland’s first passenger railway. It linked Westland Row in Dublin with Kingstown Harbour (Dún Laoghaire) in County Dublin. The D&KR was also notable for a number of other ...

. He considered himself to be a born railway engineer.

City Surveyor

Sheilds was the Sydney City Surveyor in 1843 for a few years where he worked on water works. He resigned in 1849, in order to take up a post with the

Sydney Railway Company engineer

Sheilds is mainly remembered because he persuaded the company to adopt the

rail gauge In rail transport, track gauge (in American English, alternatively track gage) is the distance between the two rails of a railway track. All vehicles on a rail network must have wheelsets that are compatible with the track gauge. Since many d ...

, rather than the English standard gauge of . Sheilds had worked on railways in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, which had adopted as its own standard gauge. His proposal was backed by the British Board of Trade, and agreed to by all Australian colonies. Sheilds resigned in 1850 when his pay was cut due to the company's financial difficulties. His replacement,

Scotsman The Scots ( sco, Scots Fowk; gd, Albannaich) are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic-speaking peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded t ...

James Wallace, recommended that the track gauge be changed to the , and the

New South Wales government The Government of New South Wales, also known as the NSW Government, is the Australian state democratic administrative authority of New South Wales. It is currently held by a coalition of the Liberal Party and the National Party. The Governmen ...

concurred. However, the construction of broad gauge lines had already started in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

and

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, and the necessary rolling stock had been ordered. The two colonies strongly protested about the change and declined to follow suit. Sheilds's recommendation, and its overturning by New South Wales, is the origin of the huge problems caused by breaks of gauge between and rail tracks in Australia. To add to the predicament, most other Australian colonies, including parts of South Australia, later adopted the cheaper narrow gauge of . Tasmania's first railway was constructed with a gauge, as per the original agreement, but it was converted to in 1888.

References

Wentworth-Sheilds Family History details
*

External links

* Irish engineers 19th-century Irish people People from County Meath Australian engineers 1820 births 1906 deaths {{Australia-engineer-stub

City Surveyor

Sydney Railway Company engineer

See also

References

External links