Henry Hoppner Meyer, portrait print (1832), National Library of Wales, Public Domain Mark 1.0 · Engraved portrait of Thomas Telford, 'Painted & Engraved by Hy. Meyer', published by Fisher, Son and Co., London, 1832 (lifetime print, titled 'Thomas Telford Esq. F.R.S. L & E, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers'), held and digitised by the National Library of Wales (item 4672045; 1 print, line and stipple engraving, 201 x 131 mm). Rights basis: (1) the library's own IIIF manifest for the item, which I read live, marks it with the Public Domain Mark 1.0 licence and credits the National Library of Wales; (2) independent of that, the print was published in London in 1832 and the artist Henry Hoppner Meyer (1782-1847, the library's catalogue dates) died long ago, so it is in the public domain in the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere by age; the NLW catalogue record page itself was behind a bot-check and could not be opened, so the item-level terms were read from the manifest and I found no conflicting copyright notice. Lead check: the lead's preflight named this same print as its initial lead. Caveats: the print is a later reproduction of Meyer's painting rather than a documented sitting, so it is recorded as a historical depiction; the file is a crop of the print area (colour-checker strip and scanner border removed) downloaded from the library's image server at 775 x 1200 pixels from a 2144 x 3564 pixel original, downscaled only, never upscaled; the print retains the plate caption and facsimile signature. · Public domain (published 1832; Public Domain Mark 1.0 on the National Library of Wales item)

engineer · 19th Century

Thomas Telford

1757–1834

Known For

engineeringindustrialtechnological

Wikidata

Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.

Trait Constellation

Key Achievements

A stonemason's son who became one of Britain's most eminent civil engineers, Telford planned or advised on hundreds of roads, canals, bridges and harbours and is called the 'Father of Civil Engineering' by the Institution of Civil Engineers.

His Pontcysyllte aqueduct (World Heritage site, 2009), the Caledonian Canal (1804-22) and the Menai suspension bridge (1819-26, a span of nearly 580 feet) are his best-known works; the canal took twelve years and cost 910,000 pounds against a plan of seven years and 474,000.

As first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers from 1820 he was the driving force behind its 1828 Royal Charter and left it his largest donation, his books, drawings and papers.

Moments That Reveal Them

Before the Menai Bridge's chains went up he had every part carefully tested by repeated experiment, because the structure was the largest of its kind ever attempted and its failure had been predicted.

This is consistent with a habit of testing a new design before committing to it, though the account comes from an admiring Victorian biography. Experimentation

For his twenty-one years as principal engineer of the Caledonian Canal, parliamentary returns show a fixed fee of 237 pounds a year, and he served the British Fisheries Society's harbour works without payment.

This is consistent with weighing public works above personal earnings, though the pay figures and the unpaid work are known mainly through one admiring biography. Impact Motivation

Turning Points

Appointed engineer of the Ellesmere Canal in 1793 with no canal-making experience, he took William Jessop's advice on earthwork and then designed the cast-iron-trough aqueducts at Chirk and Pontcysyllte that brought him national fame.

This is consistent with learning a new branch of engineering quickly by asking for help, though Smiles' own footnote notes a dispute over who proposed the iron trough. Mastery Orientation