Edward Wilson (1820 in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland – 1877) was a

civil Civil may refer to: *Civility, orderly behavior and politeness *Civic virtue, the cultivation of habits important for the success of a society *Civil (journalism) ''The Colorado Sun'' is an online news outlet based in Denver, Colorado. It lau ...

and

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

engineer, notable for his work on the development of

railways Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to roa ...

in the nineteenth century.

Career

After working initially for his father Wilson was articled to Stark & Fulton, Engineers, of

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

. Wilson worked on the

Caledonian Canal The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast at Corpach near Fort William in Scotland. The canal was constructed in the early nineteenth century by Scottish engineer Thomas Telford. Route The can ...

and various railways, including acting as the

locomotive superintendent Chief mechanical engineer and locomotive superintendent are titles applied by British, Australian, and New Zealand railway companies to the person ultimately responsible to the board of the company for the building and maintaining of the locomotive ...

for the

Hull and Selby Railway The Hull and Selby Railway is a railway line between Kingston upon Hull and Selby in the United Kingdom which was authorised by an act of Parliament in 1836 and opened in 1840. As built the line connected with the Leeds and Selby Railway (opened ...

. From 1847 to 1853, he was engineer to the

York and North Midland Railway The York and North Midland Railway (Y&NMR) was an English railway company that opened in 1839 connecting York with the Leeds and Selby Railway, and in 1840, extended this line to meet the North Midland Railway at Normanton railway station, Norma ...

, before assuming this position on the

Midland Great Western Railway The Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) was the third largest Irish gauge () railway company in Ireland. It was incorporated in 1845 and absorbed into the Great Southern Railways in 1924. At its peak the had a network of , making it Ireland's ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

in 1853. From 1858 he was Locomotive and Permanent Way Engineer for the

Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&WR) was a railway company in England. It built a line from Wolvercot JunctionThe nearby settlement is spelt ''Wolvercote'' and a later station on the LNWR Bicester line follows that spelling. ...

(later the

West Midland Railway The West Midland Railway was an early British railway company. It was formed on 1 July 1860 by the ( 23 & 24 Vict. c. lxxxi) which merged several older railway companies. It was amalgamated with the Great Western Railway on 1 August 1863. It ...

). In 1864 Wilson set up his own practice, Edward Wilson & Co, and worked on the

Metropolitan Railway The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in the City to what were to become the Middlesex su ...

and on several new lines on the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...

and on many

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

projects, including the first phase of

Liverpool Street Station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...

in 1874. He was joined in the practice by his nephew, John Wilson (1846–1922), who was his apprentice, and by the architect W. N. Ashbee; collectively the three contributed to the Great Eastern works. After Wilson's death in 1877 the practice of Edward Wilson & Co was carried on by John Wilson, in partnership with J. S. Macintyre, until it was dissolved in 1883 when John Wilson and Ashbee joined the permanent staff of the GER.

Sources

* * * * * UK Census returns 1820 births 1877 deaths Engineers from Edinburgh Scottish civil engineers Scottish railway mechanical engineers Great Western Railway people Great Eastern Railway people {{UK-rail-transport-stub