480 HIS DEATH. PART VIII. 



fessionally consulted was at the instance of the Duke 

 of Wellington not many years younger than himself, 

 but of equally vigorous intellectual powers as to the 

 improvement of Dover Harbour, then falling rapidly to 

 decay. The long-continued south-westerly gales of 

 1833-4 had the effect of rolling an immense quantity 

 of shingle up Channel towards that port, at the entrance 

 to which it became deposited in unusual quantities, so as 

 to render it at times altogether inaccessible. The Duke, 

 as a military man, took a more than ordinary interest 

 in the improvement of Dover, as the military and naval 

 station nearest to the French coast ; and it fell to him 

 as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports to watch over 

 the preservation of the harbour, situated at a point in 

 the English Channel which he regarded as of great stra- 

 tegic importance in the event of a continental war. 

 He therefore desired Mr. Telford to visit the place and 

 give his opinion as to the most advisable mode of pro- 

 cedure with a view to improving the harbour. The 

 result was a report, in which the engineer recommended 

 a plan of sluicing, similar to that adopted by Mr. Smeaton 

 at Ramsgate, and which was afterwards carried out with 

 considerable success by Mr. James Walker, C.E. 



This was his last piece of professional work. A few 

 months later he was laid up by bilious derangement of 

 a serious character, which recurred with increased vio- 

 lence towards the close of the year ; and on the 2nd of 

 September, 1834, Thomas Telford closed his useful and 

 honoured career, at the advanced age of seventy-seven. 

 With that absence of ostentation which characterised him 

 through life, he directed that his remains should be laid, 

 without ceremony, in the burialground of the parish 

 church of St. Margaret's, Westminster. But the members 

 of the Institute of Civil Engineers, who justly deemed 

 him their benefactor and chief ornament, urged upon his 

 executors the propriety of interring him in Westminster 

 Abbey. He was buried there accordingly, near the 

 middle of the nave ; where the letters, " Thomas Tel- 



