Content area
Full Text
Tower Bridge to Babylon: the life and work of Sir John Jackson, Civil Engineer Patricia Spencer-Silver, 2005 Sudbury, Suffolk, Six Martlets Publishing, for the Newcomen Society viii, 232pp. numerous illustrations £28.00 ISBN 0-9544856-1-0
The author of this study is well-known to construction historians, having already written a major study of Victorian building contractor George Myers. Now she has come up with another compelling subject: born 1 85 1 , son of a bankrupt York goldsmith, John Jackson died knighted, an MP and respected civil engineering contractor who employed thousands on vast undertakings from Scotland to the south coast and from South Africa to South America and the Middle East.
A sound and straightforward approach to the subject begins with biographical detail of Jackson's family and early circumstances. A Newcastle engineering apprenticeship was followed by Edinburgh University. After a few years working with his public works contractor brother, Jackson precociously set up his own firm at the age of 24. The book devotes a chapter for each major group of projects along his steep upward career path. Occasional digressions fill in social and family details, adding to understanding of the man and his context. Jackson soon won several contracts including the building of staging for the 1500 ton Tyne Swing Bridge. In 1876 he successfully bid for the construction of Stobcross Dock, Glasgow. This involved nearly half a million cubic yards of excavation together with about 4600ft. of masonry quay wall, mostly on complicated cylindrical foundations. The £200,000 contract was successfully completed, but there was a dispute over payment. Jackson insisted on arbitration and received a substantial award. He was still only 30 years of age.
Jackson's next undertakings were a sea wall at Eastbourne and harbour improvement at Wicklow. Both these, too, ended in litigation, but not of...