Peter W. Barlow
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Peter William Barlow (1 February 1809 – 19 May 1885) was an English civil engineer, particularly associated with railways, bridges (he designed the first
Lambeth Bridge Lambeth Bridge is a road traffic and footbridge crossing the River Thames in an east–west direction in central London. The river flows north at the crossing point. Downstream, the next bridge is Westminster Bridge; upstream, the next bridge i ...
, a crossing of the River
Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
in London), the design of tunnels and the development of tunnelling techniques. In 1864 he patented a design for a cylindrical
tunnelling shield A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, man-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the pro ...
, and obtained a provisional patent in 1868 for an improved design.


Early life

Barlow as born at
Woolwich Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained thr ...
, the son of an engineer and mathematician, professor Peter Barlow of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Privately educated, winning a Royal Society of Arts medal in 1824 for his drawing of a transit
theodolite A theodolite () is a precision optical instrument for measuring angles between designated visible points in the horizontal and vertical planes. The traditional use has been for land surveying, but it is also used extensively for building an ...
; he then became a pupil of the civil engineer,
Henry Robinson Palmer Henry Robinson Palmer (1795–1844) was a British civil engineer who designed the world's second monorail and the first elevated railway. He is also credited as the inventor of corrugated metal roofing, still one of the world's major building m ...
whom was a founder member 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 ...
– of which Barlow became an Associate Member in 1826. Under Palmer, Barlow worked on the Liverpool and Birmingham Canal and the new London Docks. Wikisource:Barlow, Peter William (DNB01) Barlow contributed to the ICE journal, writing on ''The strain to which lock gates are subjected'' in 1836. He also contributed learned papers to the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
. His brother
William Henry Barlow William Henry Barlow FRS FRSE FICE MIMechE (10 May 1812 – 12 November 1902) was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was involved in many engineering ent ...
was a noted 19th-century railway engineer.


Professional career

From 1836, Peter Barlow was the resident civil engineer under Sir
William Cubitt Sir William Cubitt FRS (bapt. 9 October 1785 – 13 October 1861) was an eminent English civil engineer and millwright. Born in Norfolk, England, he was employed in many of the great engineering undertakings of his time. He invented a type o ...
on parts of the South Eastern Railway, London to Dover line, before taking responsibility for the whole line in 1840, and later becoming Engineer-in-Chief. He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
in November 1845 as someone who was "Distinguished for his acquaintance with the science of Mathematics as applied to Engineering Subjects". From the 1850s to the 1870s, Barlow was engineer-in-chief to the Newtown and Oswestry, Londonderry and Enniskillen and Londonderry and Coleraine railways; in the mid-1860s he was also consultant engineer to the
Finn Valley Railway The Finn Valley Railway (FVR) was a gauge railway in Ireland. History Incorporation The Finn Valley Railway Company was incorporated on 15 May 1860 with capital of £60,000 (). Personnel The Chairman of the directors was The 4th Viscount Lif ...
. He investigated construction of long-span bridges, writing a paper on the
Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge The Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge stood from 1855 to 1897 across the Niagara River and was the world's first working railway suspension bridge. It spanned and stood downstream of Niagara Falls, where it connected Niagara Falls, Ontario to ...
, before becoming the engineer for the first
Lambeth Bridge Lambeth Bridge is a road traffic and footbridge crossing the River Thames in an east–west direction in central London. The river flows north at the crossing point. Downstream, the next bridge is Westminster Bridge; upstream, the next bridge i ...
(1860–1862). While designing the piers for this suspension bridge (since replaced by the current structure), Barlow experimented with driving iron cylinders into the shallow London Clay upon which much of central and north London sits. This experience led him to look at use of cylindrical devices for tunnelling work and in September 1864 he patented a cylindrical tunnelling shield which offered significant differences to the shield used by
Marc Isambard Brunel Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Born in Franc ...
in constructing the
Thames Tunnel The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London, connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 feet (11 m) wide by 20 feet (6 m) high and is 1,300 feet (396 m) long, running at a depth of ...
(1825–1843). While Barlow held one patent and one pending, he never actually built any of his own shields.
James Henry Greathead James Henry Greathead (6 August 1844 – 21 October 1896) was a mechanical and civil engineer renowned for his work on the London Underground railways, Winchester Cathedral, and Liverpool overhead railway, as well as being one of the earliest pr ...
(Barlow's pupil), independently designed, patented and built the first cylindrical tunnelling shield used on the 11-month construction of the
Tower Subway The Tower Subway is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in central London, between Tower Hill on the north bank of the river and Vine Lane (off Tooley Street) on the south. In 1869 a circular tunnel was dug through the London clay using a cast i ...
in 1869 and 1870 - the second tunnel under the Thames. Barlow was the engineer with Greathead as the contractor, according to W. C. Copperthwaite in his 1906 book on subaqueous tunnelling. While Greathead built the first European tunnelling shield,
Alfred Ely Beach Alfred Ely Beach (September 1, 1826 – January 1, 1896) was an American inventor, publisher, and patent lawyer, born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He is most known for his design of New York City's earliest subway predecessor, the Beach Pn ...
designed and built his own design of shield in New York which closely resembled Barlow's 1864 idea but again, independently. All these men were well acquainted with the Brunels' rectangular shield patent of 1818 and each improved upon the rectangular design in their own ways; in 1869, both Greathead and Beach were the first people to build a cylindrical design for tunnelling shields. The Greathead patent design was a major advance for tunnelling and was different from Barlow's 1864 design; the change from a rectangular to a cylindrical design was an obvious advantage, and "the reduction of the multiplicity of parts in the ... shield to a single rigid unit was of immense advantage and an advance perhaps equal to the shield concept of tunneling itself." From 1859 to 1867, Barlow lived at No 8 The Paragon,
Blackheath, London Blackheath is an area in Southeast London, straddling the border of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Lewisham. It is located northeast of Lewisham, south of Greenwich, London, Greenwich and southeast of Charing Cross, ...
. Rhind, N. (1983) ''Blackheath Village & Environs, 1790–1970, Vol. 2'' (Bookshop Blackheath, London) He died at 56 Lansdowne Road, Notting Hill, and is buried in the
Kensal Green Cemetery Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Queens Park in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London, England. Inspired by Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, it was founded by the barrister George Frederick ...
, London. At the time of his death he was the oldest member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.


Family

In 1836, on 5 July, Peter Barlow married Bethia Crawford Caffin; they had two daughters, and one son, also called Peter William Barlow (who also became a civil engineer and who emigrated to New Zealand in the 1880s).


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barlow, Peter W. 1809 births 1885 deaths People from Woolwich British bridge engineers English civil engineers Presidents of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers People associated with transport in London Fellows of the Royal Society Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery