Late great engineers: Thomas Telford - the ‘Colossus of Roads’

In February 1835 the Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society regretted the death of one of its earliest members, “Thomas Telford, Esq., the President of the Society of Civil Engineers”. Although his obituary appears on the same page as a warning of membership suspension for subscription defaulters, there remains a dignified air of Georgian rhetoric in the announcement. In only eight lines, despite the obituarist claiming that Telford’s talents were “too well known to need any encomium in this place”, we read that the Scottish civil engineer’s works are “so numerous all over this country (as it has been justly observed) there is scarcely a county in England, Scotland or Wales, in which they may not be seen.”

The piece continues by remarking that Telford’s bridges and canals, harbours and tunnels, roads and railways “may be regarded as imperishable monuments to the powerful resources of his mind.” It was a mind that also extended to writing verse, but in this effort he was eclipsed by his friend Poet Laureate Robert Southey, who invested the engineer –who completed the ancient Roman road known as Watling Street (now called the A5) – with the honorific ‘Colossus of Roads.’ Not many towns get to become named after engineers, but Telford in Shropshire – the ‘birthplace of industry’ – is dedicated to the man who not only spent most of his life there, but is responsible for much of the 19^th century road, canal and rail infrastructure that passes through the surrounding countryside.