William Henry Barlow

William Henry Barlow ( born May 10, 1812 in Woolwich, Kent, † November 12, 1902 in Charlton, London ) was a British civil engineer, known for some bridge construction projects and buildings for the railroad.

Life

He was the son of Peter Barlow (1776-1862), mathematics and physics at the Military Academy in Woolwich taught. His brother Peter William Barlow (1809-1885) was also a civil engineer, bridges ( Lambeth Bridge ) designed and invented an improved shield tunnel.

Barlow received his training from his father, in the yard of the Royal Navy in Woolwich and in the docks of London at the engineer Henry Robinson Palmer ( 1795-1844 ). 1832 to 1838 he was in Turkey, where he built a machine factory for Maudslay and Sons and the lighthouses examined for the Turkish government on the Bosporus. Back in England, he worked for the Manchester and Birmingham Railway and in 1842 for the Midland Counties Railway. This was taken over in 1844 by the Midland Railway, where he later became chief engineer. In 1849 he settled its own railway track patent ( Barlow rail) that could be placed directly on the gravel bed without thresholds. In 1851 he assisted Joseph Paxton in static calculations for the Crystal Palace in the World Fair in London ( Paxton was a director of the Midland Railway).

In 1857 he opened his own engineering office, but much further worked for the Midland Railway. With John Hawkshaw (1811-1891) he was given the task is to complete the Clifton Suspension Bridge by Isambard Kingdom Brunel after his death. The work had previously rested long and were completed in 1864, where he used chains of the Hungerford Suspension Bridge by Brunel, which was demolished in 1860. With 214 m span the Clifton Bridge was in its time the longest suspension bridge in the United Kingdom.

1862 to 1869 he was also a consulting engineer for the southern expansion of the Midland Railway from Bedford to London and designed for, among others, the steel structures and the main hall of St Pancras railway station, which was at that time leader with 73 m span.

After the collapse of the Firth of Tay Bridge Barlow served as the newly elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, the investigation which assigned the designer Thomas Bouch a major portion of the blame. Another consequence was the establishment of a commission for the investigation of wind loads on railway constructions (bridges ), to which he belonged. 1882-1887 led Barlow to build the second bridge over the Firth of Tay with his son.

He undertook experimental studies on the carrying capacity of steel in Woolwich in the 1850s and was a member of a commission, which proposed safe exposure limits for steel structures for railways (1877 ). He also published in 1874 about a device for sound recording.

In 1896, he went into retirement.

He was a Fellow of the Royal Society ( 1850) and in 1881 as Vice President and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

He was married to Selina Crawford Caffin and had four sons and two daughters. His son Crawford Barlow was also a civil engineer and worked with him.