Thomas Telford

by Anthony Burton

Thomas Telford, sometimes known to his contemporaries as "the Colossus of Roads", was one of the giants of the heroic age of civil engineering in Britain. His career which spanned half a century up to his death in 1834 links the trial-and-error period of engineering which typified the eighteenth-century industrial revolution to the great age of the professionals like Brunel in the Victorian era.For a man who began his career as an apprentice stonemason at Longholm near his birthplace in the Scottish lowlands, such achievements might seem monument enough. But in fact, as Anthony Burton shows, Telford's interests and influence extended well beyond the boundaries of his chosen profession. Although he had no more than a rudimentary education, he immersed himself in the cultural and artistic life of the period, always believing that his work should serve an aesthetic as well as a practical purpose. As a mason he worked for two of the greatest architects of the Georgian period, William Chambers and Robert Adam, and he numbered the poet, Robert Southey, among his closest friends. His own verse, though deeply felt, was uninspired, but many of his surviving works stand as proof, if proof were needed, that at its best, engineering is not just an exercise in problem-solving but also an expression of creative imagination.

232 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2000

About the author

Born in 1934 Anthony Burton is an author and broadcaster who specialises mostly in industrial and transport history since his first book in the area, The Canal Builders, was published in 1972. As well as canals, railways and other forms of transport, his interests also include the countryside and landscape history.