William Snell Chauncy (11 August 1820 – 3 July 1878) was an English civil engineer responsible for a number of important engineering works including the first steam railway opened in Australia.

Early life and work

William Snell Chauncy was born in

Addlestone Addlestone ( or ) is a town in Surrey, England. It is located approximately southwest of London. The town is the administrative centre of the Runnymede (borough), Borough of Runnymede, of which it is the largest settlement. History The town is ...

, Chertsey, Surrey, England in 1820. He married Anna Cox at St Michael & All Angels church, in Sunninghill, Berkshire on 7 July 1840. Chauncy initially worked with architect and surveyor, William Mullinger Higgins, on the design of a new grandstand for Ascot Race Course.Margaret Hardwick ''Hardwick Genealogy''
/ref> In 1840 Chauncy and Anna migrated to Australia on the ship the ''Appoline'' arriving on 22 November in Port Adelaide where they had family, including a half-brother Philip who as assistant surveyor of Western Australia, may have been in a position to recommend Chauncy for engineering work. The Australian venture was short lived and Chauncy set off back to England in 1844 via South Africa, but the birth of their second child Sophia Mary on board ship, caused him to delay at the Cape of Good Hope, where he obtained work supervising the construction of 300 miles of roads and several bridges. By 1846 he had moved to Ireland and was assistant engineer of roads in

County Mayo County Mayo (; ga, Contae Mhaigh Eo, meaning "Plain of the Taxus baccata, yew trees") is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. In the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Conn ...

. The family, however, stayed in West London. In about 1848, William was appointed assistant engineer on the London to Dover Railway, under

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 ...

Return to Australia

In 1849 William wrote a pamphlet for prospective emigrants to Australia, evidently based on his personal experience. Possibly connected to this was his return to Adelaide on the ''Duke of Wellington'' in the same year. The South Australian Railway Committee had commissioned W.S. Chauncy to report on a possible railway line from Adelaide, north to the copper mining town of Burra, but by the time he had completed about 84 miles of the survey, a more effective route through Port Wakefield had supplanted the northern line. However, he completed surveying the Adelaide to Port Adelaide Railway line and in 1851 surveyed a road for the Central Board of Main Roads from

Hahndorf, South Australia Hahndorf is a small town in the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. Currently an important tourism spot, it has previously been a centre for farming and services. Geography It is accessible from Adelaide, the South Australian capital, ...

to Wellington Ferry on the

Murray River The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray) (Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta: ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is Australia's longest river at extent. Its tributaries include five of the next six longest r ...

, which although officially named the South Eastern Road, is generally known as Chauncys Line.

First Australian railway

In about 1851 he moved to Victoria where a

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

boom had created new opportunities and by 1853 the family was residing at Sandridge near Melbourne. William was appointed as chief engineer of the Hobson's Bay Railway company in Melbourne, Australia preparing designs and supervising contracts for the first steam railway to operate in Australia in 1854. However, he resigned the engineership of the line under a cloud as the work he had carried out on the railway pier had proven useless. He was replaced by James Moore. Chauncy also gave evidence to the select committee inquiring on the railway gauge in 1853 and the inquiry into roads and railways in 1854. Victoria: "Internal Communication. Report of the Commissioners Appointed to Enquire into the Best Mode of Providing for the Internal Communication of the Colony." 1854
/ref> Around this time Chauncy also wrote another pamphlet ''How to Settle in Victoria'' using the pen name 'Rusticus'.

Move to New South Wales

In 1856 William took up a position as district surveyor in Belvoir in north east Victoria (Belvoir was later changed to Wodonga). His work appears to have involved crown land surveys, including Belvoir itself, and other towns and parishes; lithographed at the Crown Lands Office, Melbourne, 29 August 1859 In 1861 he supervised the erection of the first road bridge over the

between Wodonga and

Albury Albury () is a major regional city in New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the Hume Highway and the northern side of the Murray River. Albury is the seat of local government for the council area which also bears the city's name – the ...

, New South Wales. His sixteen-year-old daughter, Sophia had the honour of cutting the ribbon at the opening ceremony. In 1868 Chauncy was appointed road superintendent at

Goulburn, New South Wales Goulburn ( ) is a regional city in the Southern Tablelands of the Australian state of New South Wales, approximately south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Canberra. It was proclaimed as Australia's first inland city through letters patent ...

with one of his responsibilities being improvements to the main Sydney to Melbourne Road (now the Hume Highway). He died in 1878 of gastric fever. Chauncy had evidently been very popular with his fellow officers, contractors and workman who erected a befitting monument to his honour at Goulburn Cemetery.

References

*''Memoirs of Mrs. Poole and Mrs. Chauncy'', Philip Lamothe Snell Chauncy {{DEFAULTSORT:Chauncy, William Snell 1820 births 1878 deaths English engineers Australian engineers English expatriates in Australia English civil engineers People from Surrey 19th-century British engineers