John Waddell (1828–1888) was a Scottish railway contractor based in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. He was born in the parish of New Monkland on 16 August 1828, the son of George Waddell and his wife Elizabeth Shanks, of the farm of Gain or Gane. He married Margaret Donald (1831-1892) on 15 June 1852.

Biography

He ran the enterprising and respected firm John Waddell & SonsMoore, R.F. (1973) Paddy Waddell's Railway: Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society and went on to complete many routes during the rise of the railways across

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

during the late 19th century, especially for the

NER NER may refer to: * New European Recordings, a record label * ISO 3166-1 three letter code for Niger * Named entity recognition, a text processing task that identifies certain words as belonging to one class or another * Northeast Regional, an Amt ...

. Notable examples of his work include the rebuilding of

Putney Bridge Putney Bridge is a Grade II listed bridge over the River Thames in west London, linking Putney on the south side with Fulham to the north. The bridge has medieval parish churches beside its abutments: St Mary's Church, Putney is built on the s ...

in London (1882), the

Scarborough & Whitby Railway The Scarborough & Whitby Railway was a railway line from Scarborough to Whitby in North Yorkshire, England. The line followed a difficult but scenic route along the North Yorkshire coast. The line opened in 1885 and closed in 1965 as part of ...

, completion of the

Whitby Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway The Whitby, Redcar and Middlesbrough Union Railway (WRMU), the Whitby–Loftus Line, was a railway line in North Yorkshire, England, built between 1871 and 1886, running from Loftus on the Yorkshire coast to the Esk at Whitby, and connecting ...

and the

Mersey Railway The Mersey Railway was the first part of the passenger railway connecting the communities of Liverpool, Birkenhead, and now the rest of the Wirral Peninsula in England, which lie on opposite banks of the River Mersey, via the Mersey Railway Tun ...

tunnel. His company also built part of the approaches to the Forth Bridge. On 17 February 1883 an agreement was reached with John Waddell to construct a

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

under the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

between

Tilbury Tilbury is a port town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. The present town was established as separate settlement in the late 19th century, on land that was mainly part of Chadwell St Mary. It contains a 16th century fort and an ancie ...

and

Gravesend Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...

, work which would have carried trains through to

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

for a potential

Channel tunnel The Channel Tunnel (french: Tunnel sous la Manche), also known as the Chunnel, is a railway tunnel that connects Folkestone (Kent, England, UK) with Coquelles ( Hauts-de-France, France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. ...

, although that proposal was eventually dropped.

Death

He died at his home, 4 Belford Park,

on 17 January 1888, aged 60. He left three sons – George, Robert and John, who carried on his business after his death – and six daughters, Anne (wife of Joseph Allan Currie), Elizabeth, Margaret (wife of Sir Thomas Kennedy Dalziel), Agnes Russell MB (wife of Hope Gibson CBE), Jane and Janet (wife of John Rebbeck Garrod). He is buried on a prominent corner on the west side of

Dean Cemetery The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and on ...

opposite "Lords Row".

Notes

1828 births 1888 deaths British bridge engineers British railway pioneers British railway civil engineers 19th-century Scottish people Engineers from Edinburgh Place of birth missing 19th-century Scottish businesspeople Burials at the Dean Cemetery {{Scotland-bio-stub