TELFORD. 119 



where he obtained employment upon the quadrangle of Somerset 

 House, then erecting by Sir William Chambers, an engagement in 

 which he states that he obtained much practical information. 



After this, in 1784, he was engaged to superintend the erection 

 of a house for the resident commissioner at Portsmouth Dockyard, 

 and for the next three years was occupied upon various buildings 

 in this dockyard, which gave him good opportunities of becoming 

 well acquainted with the construction of graving-docks, wharf 

 walls, and other similar engineering works. Two or three years 

 previous to this, Telford's good character and promising talent had 

 secured for him the friendship of two families resident in his native 

 district, the Pasleys and the Johnstones, and to their influence 

 his early employment on important works is in some measure to be 

 attributed. 



In 1787, having completed his engagements at Portsmouth, he 

 was invited by Sir William Pulteney (a member of the Johnstone 

 family) to take the superintendence of some alterations to be made 

 in Shrewsbury Castle. Telford consequently removed to Shrews- 

 bury, where he was employed to erect a new jail, completed in 

 1793, and was afterwards appointed county surveyor, in which 

 office (retained by him until death) he had to design, and oversee 

 the construction of, bridges and similar works. The first bridge 

 which he designed and built was that over the Severn at Mont-fort, 

 consisting of three elliptical stone arches, one of fifty-eight, and the 

 others of fifty-five feet span. His next was the iron bridge over the 

 Severn at Buildwas, which was the third iron bridge ever erected 

 in Great Britain, the first being the Colebrookdale in Shropshire, 

 built in the years 1777-9, and the second the Wearmouth,* erected 

 .between the years 1793-6. Telford's bridge over the Severn was 

 erected in 1796, and consisted of a single arch of 130 feet span, 

 formed of five cast iron ribs, and having a rise of only 14 feet ; the 

 width of the platform is 18 feet, and the total weight of iron in the 

 bridge about 174 tons ; it was constructed by the Coalbrookdale Iron- 

 masters at a cost of 6,034Z. Forty smaller bridges were erected in 

 Shropshire under Telford's direction. 



The first great undertaking, upon which Mr. Telford (in conjunc- 

 tion with Mr. Jessop) was engaged, was the Ellesmere Canal, a 

 series of navigations intended to unite the Severn, the Dee, and the 

 Mersey, and extending altogether to a length of nearly one hundred 

 and twenty miles. From the date of this engagement, about 1793, 

 Telford directed his attention almost entirely to civil engineering. 

 In the execution of the immense aqueducts, required on this work, 

 which cross the valleys of the Ceroig or Chirk, and of the Dee, at 

 an elevation of 70 and 120 feet respectively, cast iron was first 

 introduced as a material for forming the water-troughs of the canal, 



* Originally designed by Thomas Paine. 



