John Carruthers (21 June 1836–2 September 1914) was a British engineer and economic theorist from a Scottish literary family. He was born in

Inverness Inverness (; from the gd, Inbhir Nis , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness"; sco, Innerness) is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands. Histori ...

Inverness-shire Inverness-shire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Nis) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Covering much of the Highlands and Outer Hebrides, it is Scotland's largest county, though one of the smallest in populatio ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

on 21 June 1836. He worked on railway construction in Canada, America, Russia, Mauritius and Egypt before being recruited by the Premier of New Zealand

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for his great Public Works policy of the 1870s which emphasized railway construction and immigration. He was made Engineer-in Chief of the new

Public Works Department This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure. See also * Public works * Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...

, responsible for railway construction. He resigned in 1878 after the new Minister of Works (

James Macandrew James Macandrew (1819(?) – 25 February 1887) was a New Zealand ship-owner and politician. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1853 to 1887 and as the last Superintendent of Otago Province. Early life Macandrew was born in Scotland, prob ...

) effectively demoted him to having charge of the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

only. In the 1880s he was resident in Venezuela, where he was involved in the construction of the Puerto Cabello and Valencia Railway, which connected the country's second city to the coast. This project was financed by a British company. The line opened in 1888, and included a

rack and pinion A rack and pinion is a type of linear actuator that comprises a circular gear (the '' pinion'') engaging a linear gear (the ''rack''). Together, they convert rotational motion into linear motion. Rotating the pinion causes the rack to be driven ...

section at

Trincheras Trincheras is a town in Trincheras Municipality, in the north-west of the Mexican state of Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexi ...

. Carruthers had experience of the

Fell mountain railway system The Fell system was the first third-rail system for steep grade railway, railways that were too steep to be Rail adhesion, worked by adhesion on the two running rails alone. It uses a raised centre rail between the two running rails to provide ex ...

in New Zealand, but chose the Abt system for this line. In 1889 he moved to Argentina to work on the

Córdoba North Western Railway The Córdoba North Western Railway (CNW) (in Spanish: Ferrocarril Córdoba y Noroeste) was a British-owned railway company, founded in 1889, that operated a railway network in the Córdoba Province of Argentina. Financial problems forced the sal ...

. Returning to London in the 1890s, he continued to be a consultant on New Zealand projects until his death.

Bibliography

*Carruthers, John (1877), "On Mill's Fourth Fundamental Theorem respecting Capital", Transactions of the New Zealand Institute *Carruthers, John (1878), "On Some of the Terms used in Political Economy", Transactions of the New Zealand Institute *Carruthers, John (1883), Communal and Commercial Economy: Some Elementary Theorems of the Political Economy of Communal and Commercial Societies; Together with An Examination of the Correlated Theorems of the Pseudo-Science of Wealth as Taught by Ricardo and Mill, Edward Stanford, London. *Carruthers, John (1884), "The Industrial Mechanism of a Socialist Society", To-Day, November 1884. *Carruthers, John (1885?), "Political Economy of Socialism", pamphlet of a lecture to the Hammersmith Branch of the Socialist League, London. *Carruthers, John (1894), "Socialism and Radicalism", Hammersmith Socialist Society, London. *Carruthers, John (1915), Economic Studies, Chiswick Press, London.

References

1836 births 1914 deaths New Zealand engineers British expatriates in Venezuela British railway civil engineers Scottish emigrants to New Zealand People from Inverness 19th-century New Zealand engineers Scottish engineers 19th-century British engineers 20th-century British engineers New Zealand people in rail transport British people in rail transport {{NewZealand-bio-stub