James Forrest (30 November 1825 – 2 March 1917) was Secretary of the

Institution of Civil Engineers The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters are located in the UK, whi ...

from 1856 to 1896. Forrest was born in

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...

, London. At the age of 17, in 1842, he became apprenticed to engineers

Edward Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”. History The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...

and John Manby before later moving on to work for

Thomas Grainger Thomas Grainger FRSE (12 November 1794 – 25 July 1852) was a Scottish civil engineer and surveyor. He was joint partner with John Miller in the prominent engineering firm of Grainger & Miller. Life Grainger was born at Gogar Green near R ...

. In 1850 he was contracted to assist

Charles Manby Charles Manby, FRS FRSA (4 February 1804 – 31 July 1884) was Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers from November 1839 to 1856, and engineer of the first iron steamer to cross the English Channel. Fluent in French, he installed gas ...

catalogue the library of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Forrest edited the library catalogue published in 1851. He was briefly Assistant Secretary of the Royal Society of Arts before returning to the Institution of Civil Engineers in June 1856 as Assistant Secretary. In 1859 he was made Secretary of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Forrest lived at 37 St. Michael's Grove in London during his career. He died in 1917 at his home in St. Leonard's-on-Sea. The James Forrest Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers was established in his honour upon his retirement in 1896.

References

1825 births 1917 deaths People from Westminster {{UK-engineer-stub