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Thomas Telford - Master Builder of Roads and Canals (Paperback)
Loot Price: R371
Discovery Miles 3 710
You Save: R82
(18%)
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Thomas Telford - Master Builder of Roads and Canals (Paperback)
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List price R453
Loot Price R371
Discovery Miles 3 710
You Save R82 (18%)
Expected to ship within 9 - 15 working days
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Thomas Telford's life was extraordinary: born in the Lowlands of
Scotland, where his father worked as a shepherd, he ended his days
as the most revered engineer in the world, known punningly as The
Colossus of Roads. He was responsible for some of the great works
of the age, such as the suspension bridge across the Menai Straits
and the mighty Pontcysyllte aqueduct. He built some of the best
roads seen in Britain since the days of the Romans and constructed
the great Caledonian Canal, designed to take ships across Scotland
from coast to coast. He did as much as anyone to turn engineering
into a profession and was the first President of the newly formed
Institution of Civil Engineers. All this was achieved by a man who
started work as a boy apprentice to a stonemason. He was always
intensely proud of his homeland and was to be in charge of an
immense programme of reconstruction for the Highlands that included
building everything from roads to harbours and even designing
churches. He was unquestionably one of Britains finest engineers,
able to take his place alongside giants such as Brunel. He was also
a man of culture, even though he had only a rudimentary education.
As a mason in his early days he had worked alongside some of the
greatest architects of the day, such as William Chambers and Robert
Adams, and when he was appointed County Surveyor for Shropshire
early in his career, he had the opportunity to practice those
skills himself, designing two imposing churches in the county and
overseeing the renovation of Shrewsbury Castle. Even as a boy, he
had developed a love of literature and throughout his life wrote
poetry and became a close friend of the Poet Laureate, Robert
Southey. He was a man of many talents, who rose to the very top of
his profession but never forgot his roots: he kept his old masons
tools with him to the end of his days. There are few official
monuments to this great man, but he has no need of them: the true
monuments are the structures that he left behind that speak of a
man who brought about a revolution in transport and civil
engineering.
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