198 



EENNIE'S DOCKS AND HARBOURS. 



PART VII. 



engineer. At the same period, in 1800, a company was 

 formed by the London merchants for the purpose of 

 constructing docks at a point as near the Exchange as 

 might be practicable, for the accommodation of general 

 merchandise, and of this scheme Mr. Eennie was ap- 

 pointed the engineer. He proposed several designs for 

 consideration on a scale more or less extensive, adopting 

 his usual course of submitting alternative plans, from 

 which practical men might make a selection of the one 

 most suitable for the purposes of their business ; at the 

 same time inviting suggestions, which he afterwards 

 worked up into his more complete designs. As the 

 future trade of London was an unknown quantity, he 

 wisely provided for the extension of the docks as circum- 

 stances might afterwards require. 



In carrying out the London Docks it was deemed 

 advisable, in the first instance, to limit the access to the 

 present Middle River Entrance at Bell Dock, 150 feet 



family to that engineer, who adopted 

 William as his pupil, and carefully 

 brought him up to the same profes- 



WILLIAM JE3SOP, C.E. 



sion. With Smeaton Jessop continued 

 for ten years ; and, after leaving 

 him, he was engaged successively on 

 the Aire and Calder, the Calder and 

 Hebble, and the Trent Navigations. 



He also executed the Cromford and 

 the Nottingham Canals ; the Lough - 

 borough and Leicester, and the Horn- 

 castle Navigations ; but the most 

 extensive and important of his works 

 of this kind was the Grand Junction 

 Canal, by which the whole of the 

 north-western inland navigation of the 

 kingdom was brought into direct con- 

 nection with the metropolis. He was 

 also employed as engineer for the Cale- 

 donian Canal, in which he was suc- 

 ceeded by Telford, who carried out the 

 work. He was the engineer of the West 

 India Docks (1800-2) and of the Bristol 

 Docks (1803-8), both works of great 

 importance. He was the first engineer 

 who was employed to lay out and 

 construct railroads as a branch of his 

 profession; the Croydonand Merstham 

 Kailroad, worked by donkeys and 

 mules, having been constructed by 

 him as early as 1803. He also laid 

 down short railways in connection 

 with his canals in Derbyshire, York- 

 shire, and Nottinghamshire. During 

 the later years of his life he was 

 much afflicted by paralysis, and died 

 in 1814. 



