James Simpson (1799–1869) was a British civil engineer. He was president 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 January 1853 to January 1855. James Simpson was the fourth son of

Thomas Simpson Thomas Simpson FRS (20 August 1710 – 14 May 1761) was a British mathematician and inventor known for the eponymous Simpson's rule to approximate definite integrals. The attribution, as often in mathematics, can be debated: this rule had been ...

, engineer of the

Chelsea Waterworks The Chelsea Waterworks Company was a London waterworks company founded in 1723 which supplied water to many central London locations throughout the 18th and 19th centuries until its functions were taken over by the Metropolitan Water Board in ...

. James succeeded his father in both this post and that of engineer of the

Lambeth Waterworks Company The Lambeth Waterworks Company was a utility company supplying water to parts of south London in England. The company was established in 1785 with works in north Lambeth and became part of the publicly owned Metropolitan Water Board in 1904 ...

. It was under Simpson's instruction that the Chelsea Waterworks became the first in the country to install a slow sand filtration system to purify the water they were drawing from 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 ...

. This filter consisted of successive beds of loose brick, gravel and sand to remove solids from the water. He also designed waterworks at

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history. The original c ...

and

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

as well as The Wooden Pier at

Southend on Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authority area with borough status in southeastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, east of central London. It is bordered ...

. Simpson established J. Simpson & Co., a manufacturer of steam engines and pumps, making several improvements to their design.

References

English civil engineers Presidents of the Institution of Civil Engineers Presidents of the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers 1799 births 1869 deaths 19th-century British engineers Fellows of the Royal Society {{civil-engineering-stub