Folkestone

[`fəʊkstən]

Фолкстон

n геогр. н.

м. Фолкстон

kraj. ime

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(0) фолкстон

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г. Фолкстон

сущ.; геогр.

SUBJECT AREA: Civil engineering, Ports and shipping, Railways and locomotives

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The son of a miller, he received a rudimentary education in the village school. At an early age he was helping his father in the mill, and in 1800 he was apprenticed to a cabinet maker. After four years he returned to work with his father, but, preferring to leave the parental home, he not long afterwards joined a firm of agricultural-machinery makers in Swanton in Norfolk. There he acquired a reputation for making accurate patterns for the iron caster and demonstrated a talent for mechanical invention, patenting a self-regulating windmill sail in 1807. He then set up on his own as a millwright, but he found he could better himself by joining the engineering works of Ransomes of Ipswich in 1812. He was soon appointed their Chief Engineer, and after nine years he became a partner in the firm until he moved to London in 1826. Around 1818 he invented the treadmill, with the aim of putting prisoners to useful work in grinding corn and other applications. It was rapidly adopted by the principal prisons, more as a means of punishment than an instrument of useful work.

From 1814 Cubitt had been gaining experience in civil engineering, and upon his removal to London his career in this field began to take off. He was engaged on many canal-building projects, including the Oxford and Liverpool Junction canals. He accomplished some notable dock works, such as the Bute docks at Cardiff, the Middlesborough docks and the coal drops on the river Tees. He improved navigation on the river Severn and compiled valuable reports on a number of other leading rivers.

The railway construction boom of the 1840s provided him with fresh opportunities. He engineered the South Eastern Railway (SER) with its daringly constructed line below the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover; the railway was completed in 1843, using massive charges of explosive to blast a way through the cliffs. Cubitt was Consulting Engineer to the Great Northern Railway and tried, with less than his usual success, to get the atmospheric system to work on the Croydon Railway.

When the SER began a steamer service between Folkestone and Boulogne, Cubitt was engaged to improve the port facilities there and went on to act as Consulting Engineer to the Boulogne and Amiens Railway. Other commissions on the European continent included surveying the line between Paris and Lyons, advising the Hanoverian government on the harbour and docks at Hamburg and directing the water-supply works for Berlin.

Cubitt was actively involved in the erection of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851; in recognition of this work Queen Victoria knighted him at Windsor Castle on 23 December 1851.

Cubitt's son Joseph (1811–72) was also a notable civil engineer, with many railway and harbour works to his credit.

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SUBJECT AREA: Canals, Civil engineering, Ports and shipping, Railways and locomotives

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William Jessop inherited from his father a natural ability in engineering, and because of his father's association with John Smeaton in the construction of Eddystone Lighthouse he was accepted by Smeaton as a pupil in 1759 at the age of 14. Smeaton was so impressed with his ability that Jessop was retained as an assistant after completion of his pupilage in 1767. As such he carried out field-work, making surveys on his own, but in 1772 he was recommended to the Aire and Calder Committee as an independent engineer and his first personally prepared report was made on the Haddlesey Cut, Selby Canal. It was in this report that he gave his first evidence before a Parliamentary Committee. He later became Resident Engineer on the Selby Canal, and soon after he was elected to the Smeatonian Society of Engineers, of which he later became Secretary for twenty years. Meanwhile he accompanied Smeaton to Ireland to advise on the Grand Canal, ultimately becoming Consulting Engineer until 1802, and was responsible for Ringsend Docks, which connected the canal to the Liffey and were opened in 1796. From 1783 to 1787 he advised on improvements to the River Trent, and his ability was so recognized that it made his reputation. From then on he was consulted on the Cromford Canal (1789–93), the Leicester Navigation (1791–4) and the Grantham Canal (1793–7); at the same time he was Chief Engineer of the Grand Junction Canal from 1793 to 1797 and then Consulting Engineer until 1805. He also engineered the Barnsley and Rochdale Canals. In fact, there were few canals during this period on which he was not consulted. It has now been established that Jessop carried the responsibility for the Pont-Cysyllte Aqueduct in Wales and also prepared the estimates for the Caledonian Canal in 1804. In 1792 he became a partner in the Butterley ironworks and thus became interested in railways. He proposed the Surrey Iron Railway in 1799 and prepared for the estimates; the line was built and opened in 1805. He was also the Engineer for the 10 mile (16 km) long Kilmarnock \& Troon Railway, the Act for which was obtained in 1808 and was the first Act for a public railway in Scotland. Jessop's advice was sought on drainage works between 1785 and 1802 in the lowlands of the Isle of Axholme, Holderness, the Norfolk Marshlands, and the Axe and Brue area of the Somerset Levels. He was also consulted on harbour and dock improvements. These included Hull (1793), Portsmouth (1796), Folkestone (1806) and Sunderland (1807), but his greatest dock works were the West India Docks in London and the Floating Harbour at Bristol. He was Consulting Engineer to the City of London Corporation from 1796to 1799, drawing up plans for docks on the Isle of Dogs in 1796; in February 1800 he was appointed Engineer, and three years later, in September 1803, he was appointed Engineer to the Bristol Floating Harbour. Jessop was regarded as the leading civil engineer in the country from 1785 until 1806. He died following a stroke in 1814.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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Plimsoll was educated privately and at Dr Eadon's school in Sheffield. On leaving school he became Clerk to a solicitor and then to a brewery, where he rose to become Manager. In 1851 he acted as an honorary secretary to the Great Exhibition. Two years later he went to London and set up as a coal merchant: he published two pamphlets on the coal trade in 1862. After several unsuccessful attempts, he managed to be elected as Member of Parliament for Derby in 1868, in the Radical interest. He concerned himself with mercantile shipping and in 1870 he began his campaign to improve safety at sea, particularly by the imposition of a load-line on vessels to prevent dangerous overloading. In 1871 he introduced a resolution into the House of Commons and also a bill, the Government also having proposed one on the same subject, but strong opposition from the powerful shipping-business interest forced a withdrawal. Plimsoll published a pamphlet, Our Seamen, bitterly attacking the shipowners. This aroused public feeling and controversy, and under pressure the Government appointed a Royal Commission in 1873, under the chairmanship of the Duke of Somerset, to examine the matter. Their report did not support Plimsoll's proposal for a load-line, but that did not prevent him from bringing forward his own bill, which was narrowly defeated by only three votes. The Government then introduced its own merchant shipping bill in 1875, but it was so mauled by the Opposition that the Prime Minister, Disraeli, threatened to withdraw it. That provoked a violent protest from Plimsoll in the House, including a description of the shipowners which earned him temporary suspension from the House. He was allowed to return after an apology, but the incident served to heighten public feeling for the seamen. The Government were obliged to hustle through the Merchant Shipping Act 1876, which ensured, among other things, that ships should be marked with what has become universally known as the Plimsoll Line; Plimsoll himself became known as "The Seamen's Friend".

In 1880 he relinquished his parliamentary seat at Derby, but he continued his campaign to improve conditions for seamen and to ensure that the measures in the Act were properly carried out.