May 20, 1873. T. HAWKSLEY, President, in the Chair. : The following Candidates were balloted for and duly elected :GEORGE WILLIAM KEELING and JOHN GEORGE MAIR, as Members; WILLIAM JOHN FRASER, ARTHUR HENRY HEATH, LOWIS JACKSON, ELIAS WILLIAM JONES, JOHN MILTON LEWIS, FREDERICK HARRY MORT, Stud. Inst. C.E., GEORGE EDWARD ORMISTON, ROBERT HUNTER RHIND, GEORGE HENRY ROBERTS, FRANK DE MIERRE Turner, George WALLER WILLCOCKS, FRANCIS WINDHAM, Stud. Inst. C.E., and Sir WILLIAM WRIGHT, as Associates. It was announced that the Council, acting under the provisions of Sect. III., Cl. VII., of the Bye-Laws, had transferred ALEXANDER RICHARDSON BINNIE, RICHARD HENRY BRUNTON, and EDWARD HARRY Woons, from the class of Associates to that of Members. Also, that the following Candidates, having been duly recommended, had been admitted by the Council, under the provisions of Sect. IV. of the Bye-Laws, as Students of the Institution :CHARLES ARTHUR FRIEND, EDWARD FYFE GRIFFITH GRIFFITH, HERBERT SEPTIMUS HARINGTON, FREDERICK SHARP, HARRY SCOTT TAYLOR, CHARLES TICKELL, AUGUSTUS BY THESEA TODD, CLAUDE VINCENT, GEORGE EDWARD VINT, and GEORGE KEMPTHORNE Watts. The discussion upon the Paper, No. 1,367, "On the Changes that have recently taken place along the Sea Coast of the Delta of the Danube, and on the Consolidation of the Provisional Works at the Sulina Mouth," by Sir C. Hartley, was continued throughout the evening. May 27, 1873. The Session was concluded by a conversazione, which was given by the President and Mrs. Hawksley, in the West Galleries of the Annual International Exhibition Buildings at South Kensington, by permission of Her Majesty's Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851. The section of the Exhibition opened to the visitors included the machinery in motion-this year devoted to the Manufacture of Silk Velvet, and to mechanical processes involved in the production of Food-and the British and foreign paintings. Some objects from the Scientific Inventions Court, and from other parts of the Exhibition, were likewise transferred for the occasion to the West Galleries. In addition to the members of all classes of the Institution, invitations were sent to, and were accepted by, a numerous circle of distinguished men of science and others; and in every case the card of invitation admitted a lady. APPENDIX TO ANNUAL REPORT. MEMOIRS. Mr. NATHANIEL BEARDMORE, the second son of Joshua and Marianne Dorothea Beardmore, of Nottingham, was born on the 19th of March, 1816. His father removed shortly afterwards, first to London and then to Devonshire, where the childhood and youth of young Nathaniel were principally spent. His culture, both moral and mental, was carefully attended to by his parents, and he was particularly indebted to the talent and assiduity of his mother, who especially superintended his early education, and even to some extent anticipated the schoolmaster by teaching him the rudiments of Latin and Greek. In 1826 he attended with his brothers a day-school at Chudleigh, and subsequently the Devonport Grammar School. Here his powers of observation were developed under the careful instruction of the head master, the Rev. H. Greaves, with whom for some years he resided. At this period the mechanical bent of his mind became noticeable; and it is related that he designed and made a working model of a steam traction-engine, to the delight of his brothers and sisters. At that time traction-engines had only just been invented. Amongst his contemporaries at this school were Dr. Colenso and Mr. Charles Greaves, M. Inst. C.E. In 1831 he commenced his professional education. In the first instance he was placed with the late Mr. George Wightwick, an architect in Plymouth, for instruction in drawing, at the expiration of which he was articled for five years to the late Mr. James Meadows Rendel (Past President Inst. C.E.), then a resident in the same town, and rising rapidly into practice and fame. Mr. Beardmore, as Mr. Rendel's first pupil, had an excellent opportunity of acquiring a thorough knowledge of his profession. He was employed on the surveys of the Exeter and Plymouth railway, of the new road to Kingsbridge, and of the floating bridge across the Itchen, at Southampton, as well as upon the drawings of the proposed suspension bridges at Clifton and at Montrose, and the Government works in Plymouth Sound and Devonport. At the expiration of his pupilage, in 1838, Mr. Beardmore took an office in London, and made a survey of Effingham parish, in the county of Surrey. He was also engaged on the branch line of the Brighton railway to Portsmouth, and during the autumn was employed by Mr. Rendel on the Parliamentary surveys for a proposed railway between Exeter and Plymouth across Dartmoor. Subsequently he accepted an offer of partnership from Mr. Rendel, who removed to London, and left Mr. Beardmore in charge of the office and business in Plymouth. In 1841 Mr. Beardmore married Mary, eldest daughter of the late J. F. Bernard, Esq. The principal works which then occupied Messrs. Rendel and Beardmore in the vicinity of Plymouth were the improvement of the Devonport Water Company's service reservoirs and distributing mains, for the supply of water to the town, the dockyard, and the public departments; the construction of the Millbay Pier, in a small tidal basin at the top of Millbay, Plymouth; the preliminary surveys for the South Devon railway, and marine and riverain works for public companies, the Admiralty, and other Government departments. In 1843 Mr. Beardmore left Plymouth for London. In 1844 he was engaged on a project for improving the water-supply to Glasgow, and superintended the Parliamentary surveys for the Glasgow Gravitation Water Company. This project embraced the construction of a large reservoir in the valley of the Avon, at Gilmerston, about 24 miles south of Glasgow, from which the water was to be conveyed by an aqueduct to a depositing reservoir at Cathkin, and thence into the city by pipes. In the spring of the following year, however, the Company was dissolved and the scheme abandoned. In 1845 he went to Spain, and made an inspection of the country from the harbours of Aviles and Gijon-passing through the coalfields of the Asturias-to Leon and Madrid, preparatory to laying out the line for the proposed Royal North of Spain railway. The construction of this work was not at that time carried out. Parenthetically, it may be noted that his grasp of the topographical features of a country and of its resources, from an Engineer's point of view, was exceedingly keen, and he worked with great rapidity, especially at levelling and surveying-a characteristic which was much appreciated in his younger days. On his return to England he was engaged in preparing plans for the proposed Ipswich, Norwich, and Yarmouth railway; and in short, during the rest of that year, and in 1846, he was, like all the rest of the profession, [1872-73. N.S.] S almost exclusively occupied on behalf of, or in opposition to, railway projects. Mr. Rendel having been retained by the Edinburgh Waterworks Company as their Consulting Engineer, Mr. Beardmore was engaged with him in reporting upon the improvement and extension of their works, and took an active and prominent part in surveying and designing the extensive works included under the Bill of 1846-47. The Act was obtained, and the works were eventually carried out under Messrs. Rendel and Beardmore by Mr. J. Leslie, M. Inst. C.E., of Edinburgh, between the years 1847 and 1852. They consisted in the raising of the original, or Glencoe, reservoir constructed by the late Mr. Jardine, C.E., about 1823, and the construction on the Pentland Hills of five other store and compensation reservoirs, one of which was 85 ft. deep, the aggregate additional storage thereby provided being about 600,000,000 gallons; the collection by branch pipes of the waters of numerous springs on the north side of the Pentland Hills; and the conveying of that water to Edinburgh by a masonry aqueduct of upwards of 4 miles in length, and through 5 miles of iron pipes. By mutual consent Mr. Beardmore's partnership with Mr. Rendel terminated in 1848. During that time he was engaged on the Birkenhead Docks project, which attracted so much attention at that period, and also on extensive drainage operations on the Nene, Wyze, Plym, Ouze, &c.; and he was connected, more or less directly, with the improvement of the supplies of water to several of the larger towns in the north of England. But the works for the improvement of the navigation and drainage of the river Lee were those upon which he was most continuously employed. He was introduced to these works in 1847, by his connection with Mr. Rendel, and became sole engineer to them in 1850, when an Act of Parliament was obtained sanctioning the thorough improvement of the river. From that time he devoted himself with untiring energy to carrying out the new works, and, in 1855, removed from Westminster to Broxbourne, in Hertfordshire, as the most central situation for their supervision. In 1854 Mr. Beardmore contributed a Paper to the Institution, giving a description of the improvements executed on the First Division, or Tidal portion of the River,1 which was followed, in 1858, by a Paper by the late Mr. Richard Carden Despard, M. Inst. C.E., then his chief assistant, on those executed in the Second Division.2 1 Vide Minutes of Proceedings Inst. C.E., vol. xiii., p. 241. |