1. William Jessop was an English civil engineer, best known for his work on canals, harbours and early railways in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
33 Facts About William Jessop
1. 2.
Josias William Jessop was responsible for the repair and maintenance of Rudyerd's Tower, a wooden lighthouse on the Eddystone Rock.
3.
William Jessop carried out this task for twenty years until 1755, when the lighthouse burnt down.
4.
William Jessop worked as Smeaton's assistant for a number of years before beginning to work as an engineer in his own right.
5.
William Jessop assisted Smeaton with the Calder and Hebble and the Aire and Calder navigations in Yorkshire.
6.
The first major work that William Jessop is known to have carried out was the Grand Canal of Ireland.
7.
Smeaton sent William Jessop to take control of the project as principal engineer.
8.
William Jessop re-surveyed the proposed line of the canal and carried the canal over the River Liffey, via the Leinster Aqueduct.
9.
William Jessop drove the canal across the great Bog of Allen, a feat comparable with George Stephenson's crossing of the Chat Moss bog with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
10.
William Jessop identified sources of water and built reservoirs, so that the canal was in no danger of running dry.
11.
William Jessop was a very modest man, who did not seek self-aggrandizement.
12.
William Jessop would recommend another engineer if he was too busy to be able to undertake a commission himself.
13.
William Jessop recommended John Rennie for the post of engineer to the Lancaster Canal Company, an appointment that helped to establish Rennie's reputation.
14.
When William Jessop was consulting engineer to the Ellesmere Canal Company, in 1793, the company appointed the relatively unknown Thomas Telford as resident engineer.
15.
William Jessop supported Telford, even when the Company thought that the latter's designs for aqueducts were too ambitious.
16.
In 1789 William Jessop was appointed chief engineer to the Cromford Canal Company.
17.
In 1793, the Derwent Viaduct partially collapsed, and William Jessop shouldered the blame, saying that he had not made the front walls strong enough.
18.
William Jessop had the viaduct repaired and strengthened at his own expense.
19.
William Jessop built the Butterley Reservoir above the tunnel, extending for 50 acres.
20.
William Jessop was appointed Chief Engineer to the Canal Company in 1793.
21.
In fact William Jessop considered abandoning it and using locks to carry the canal over the ridge.
22.
William Jessop's temporary solution was a railway line laid over the ridge to carry traffic until the tunnel was completed.
23.
William Jessop was the Chief Engineer for the docks, with Ralph Walker as his assistant.
24.
The first part of the proposed Surrey Iron Railway was to be from Wandsworth to Croydon, and William Jessop was asked for his opinion on the two opposing schemes.
25.
William Jessop declared that the tramway was a better scheme, as a canal would require too much water and would unduly reduce the supply in the River Wandle.
26.
William Jessop was appointed Chief Engineer of the project in 1801.
27.
William Jessop was again appointed Chief Engineer, with his son Josias as his assistant.
28.
From 1784 to 1805 William Jessop lived in Newark in Nottinghamshire, where he twice served as town mayor.
29.
William Jessop died at his home, Butterley Hall, on 18 November 1814.
30.
William Jessop was in the unusual position of bridging the gap between the canal engineers and the railway engineers who came later.
31.
William Jessop's name did not gain the lasting fame that it deserved because of his modesty.
32.
Unlike some engineers, such as George Stephenson, William Jessop did not stoop to undignified wrangles with fellow professionals.
33.
William Jessop was highly regarded by almost all those who had worked with him or for him.