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Sheilds,Francis Webb
Description
Unique IDPE-000039SurnameSheildsGiven namesFrancis WebbAlternative nameFrancis Webb Wentworth-Sheilds (after 1877)Birth date1st January 1820Birth date qualifieryear onlyDeath date1st January 1906Death date qualifieryear onlyBiographical noteProfessional career relating to NSW
Draftsman and Assistant to City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 6 September 1843.
City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 8 June 1846; resigned 29 January 1849.
Engineer for Sydney Railway Company, 1849-1851.
He was appointed 9 January 1849 by the Provisional Committee of the Sydney Railway Company to survey the proposed railway lines from Sydney to Parramatta and Sydney to Liverpool. Upon the incorporation of The Sydney Railway Company on 14 November 1849, he was appointed Engineer.
Inspecting Engineer to NSW Railways 1872-1875, resident in England.
Personal and Family History
Francis Webb Sheilds was born in 1820 in County Meath, Ireland and educated in Dublin.
Sheilds’ family were members of the Anglo-Irish Gentry and landed classes. Sheilds’ father was the Reverend Wentworth Sheilds, rector of Newtown, County Meath. Sheilds’ ancestor, Robert, was granted land at Fyanstown, County Meath in 1667. The Reverend Wentworth Sheilds’ mother was Sarah Wentworth, the last of the line of a branch of the Irish Wentworth family descended from the noble line of the Wentworths of Yorkshire. This connection was recognised by Queen Victoria when Francis Webb Sheilds and his elder brother John Gore Sheilds were permitted by Royal Licence in 1877 to add the prefix surname Wentworth to their name. Accordingly in later references to the two men their surname appears as Wentworth-Sheilds and this is the name used by their descendants. There is a link also to the Wentworth family in Sydney of Darcy Wentworth and his prominent son William Charles Wentworth who were also descended from a branch of the Irish Wentworth family and whose link to Rockingham, Lord Fitzwilliam and the Earls of Strafford was recognised by those families. Their common ancestor is probably Darcy Wentworth who was granted land at Fyanstown, County Meath in the 1680s.
Francis Webb Sheilds’ mother was a member of the Plunkett family who also had links to the Irish Wentworth family. The Plunkett family was represented in Sydney by John Hubert Plunkett who was born County Roscommon, Ireland and educated in Dublin. He served as Solicitor General of NSW from 1832 to 1841, and concurrently as Attorney General of NSW from February 1836; he remained Attorney-General until 1856; from 1843 to 1856 he was appointed a member of the Executive Council of NSW and was later an elected MLC and holder of many high offices. From late 1841 until his return to Sydney in August 1843, Plunkett took leave of absence to deal with family matters in Ireland and it seems reasonable to assume that he may have alerted Francis Sheilds to the opportunities available to an ambitious young man in Sydney and NSW.
Professional Training.
Francis Webb Sheilds was apprenticed in 1837 at the age of 17 to Charles Blacker Vignoles, prominent British railway engineer who was responsible for the survey, design or building of many railways in England and Ireland during the 1830s and 1840s. Vignoles had become a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in1827 and was appointed the first Professor of Civil Engineering at University College London in 1841.
Arrival in Sydney and employment by City of Sydney Council
Francis Webb Sheilds left Portsmouth England in October 1842 aboard the ship St George and arrived in Sydney on 23 January 1843 In company with two Misses Plunkett. Sheilds arrived in difficult times. The Colony was in the grip of a financial depression; there were many bankruptcies, many business failures and much unemployment.
On 6 September 1843, Sheilds was appointed Draughtsman and Assistant City Surveyor to the City of Sydney with an annual salary of £120. He was selected from 20 candidates. The Council in closed session eliminated 17 candidates and made their final selection from M Burrowes (6 votes), WH Wells (8 votes) and Sheilds (10 votes).
At the end of August 1843, Council had decided to hold a competition for the design of a Town Hall and Sheilds took the opportunity to submit an entry. In November, the Selection Committee met to consider the entries but it was decided that Sheilds was ineligible as he was employed by Council. Upon his withdrawal of his entry, the Town Clerk officially returned his plans while informing him that “I have at the same time been commissioned to express to you the opinion of the Committee that your plans and specifications are very creditable to you.”
In April 1843 a Special Committee of Council had recommended that a general survey of the City should be made and a map produced to assist in re-forming, repairing and draining the streets of the City. The task was assigned to Sheilds and throughout 1844 he surveyed Sydney to complete a correct and detailed scale map of the city. He worked on the survey in the daylight hours before and after his attendance between 9 am and 4 pm at the office of the City Surveyor. Sheilds finished the drawing and colouring of the map during 1845 and later that year he made a tracing of the map for the Governor of NSW. In the finalisation of the Map and its copy, he was assisted by the District Surveyor Buchanan.
The map showed the streets of the City, the boundaries of the Parishes and the City Wards, the shoreline continuously from Elizabeth Bay to Blackwattle Bay and the locations of buildings in the City, often with the owner’s name, and coded to show whether a public or private building and whether composed of brick/stone or wood. The map also showed such City features as the various wharfs with their names, the Government Paddocks, the City cattle pens at the Hay Corn and Cattle Market, the gardens at Elizabeth Bay and Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. The map was apparently much used in the City Surveyor’s Department. A tracing of it was made in 1896 or 1897 because its condition had become “very dilapidated” and that copy is now held in the City of Sydney Archives while a scanned copy can be seen on the City website.
By 1844-45, Sheilds was living at 147 Elizabeth St with at least one of the Misses Plunkett. Their names are listed in Low’s City of Sydney Directory for 1844-45 and Sheilds’ name appears in the City of Sydney 1845 Assessment Books for Macquarie Ward as the ratepayer at 147 Elizabeth St. The dwelling is described as a two storey brick house with shingle roof, 5 rooms, and a kitchen and as having a gross annual rental value of £60; he was certainly not renting cheap accommodation. Considering his salary at this time was only £120 per annum, it seems likely that he was able to rely on Plunkett family resources.
When the Council in January 1846 requested its officers to give written reports on the responsibilities of their offices, Sheilds presented a month by month account of all his activities during 1845. His regular weekly tasks included many of a clerical nature such as preparing lists, entering letters, writing out accounts and pay lists and keeping the books of the Improvement Committee. He was also sometimes seconded to the Town Clerk making copies of the Citizens Lists or writing out reports or lists for the Town Clerk of works or details of the streets. The tasks in the City Surveyor’s Department involving his skills and experience as surveyor included taking levels and making plans and sections of a number of the City’s streets and making measurements or costing such works as kerbing and guttering.
In 1846, the City Surveyor, William Moir found himself caught in controversy regarding works performed under contract by John Dingwall in Goulburn and Castlereagh Streets. There were arguments about the quality of the work, arguments as to whether deficient works or works contrary to the contract had been certified by Moir and attempts by the Improvement Committee to alter or renege on payments. Dingwall threatened legal action. Moir tendered his resignation in May and it was accepted on 1 June 1846. Sheilds was appointed City Surveyor pro tem and applied for the permanent position which was given to him on 8 June.
In his application, Sheilds wrote
“I have been regularly educated as a Civil Engineer on the public works of England - that I am well acquainted with surveying, building, road-making, draining and estimating and measuring work, having now been for nearly three years Assistant Surveyor to the Corporation, I would respectfully refer to your knowledge of my general character for good conduct and application to business. During that time I have surveyed and executed a map of the City and made many other drawings, designs and estimates under the superintendence of the late City Surveyor.”
The position carried a salary of £300 pa and required two sureties to sign a bond for a substantial amount (reduced to 3 times annual salary in 1848). The identity of the two sureties demonstrates Sheilds links to the highest level of the legal fraternity of Sydney. His first surety was John Dillon Moore who was NSW Crown Solicitor from 1839 to 1859. His second surety was Thomas Callaghan who had graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1836, migrated to NSW in 1839 and was admitted as barrister in that year. He was appointed Land Commissioner and pro tem Crown Prosecutor in 1841, the latter becoming a permanent appointment in 1845. He was the legal scholar who, in 1844, produced a compilation of the Acts and Ordinances of NSW which became known as Callaghan’s Acts. He was later to become one of the first judges of the District Court.
During his two and a half years as City Surveyor from his appointment on 8 June 1846 until his resignation on 29 January 1849, Sheilds oversaw many projects improving Sydney’s streets and water supply.
Council’s processes, the behaviour of Councillors and Council actions during this period were strongly criticised in a NSW Legislative Council Inquiry appointed in May 1849 which was to result eventually in the dismissal of Council, the appointment of Commissioners and the re-drafting of the Municipal Council Incorporation Act. Council operated with several permanent Committees composed of Aldermen and Councillors which examined proposals and made recommendations to Council on work to be done. Two of the major committees of this period were the Water Committee dealing with water supply, sewerage and drainage issues and the Improvement Committee dealing with all works on City streets or City properties.
The Improvement Committee had during 1846-49 twelve to fourteen members and met at least weekly. Works proposed to be undertaken were usually referred to the City Surveyor for a report; then at a later meeting the matter would be examined and debated; a decision might be made or the matter stood over for a time; a decision already made might be rescinded at the next meeting. When its decisions were placed before Council there was usually yet more consideration and debate, particularly from the Councillors who were not members of the Committee and likely as not the matter might be referred back to the Committee for further debate. The process was cumbersome and slow. The Committee from time to time set up sub-committees to investigate proposals in greater depth. These sub-committees also demanded reports and the presence of the City Surveyor to inspect in their company the location of a job of work and present explanations and observations. Although in November 1845, the Committee decided that it would no longer require the attendance of the City Surveyor at its meetings, he was required to be in his office and available at the time of meetings while his assistant took the minutes.
Sheilds was responsible for the management of the labour force employed by Council on a weekly basis (the ‘day labourers’) and for the purchase and care of Council equipment for use by the labourers in street works, quarrying, street cleansing and the water supply. He was also responsible for the documenting of the activities of his Department and for the records of the Improvement Committee.
In November 1846, Sheilds reported that the major streets most in need of urgent repair and kerbing and guttering were George St, Parramatta Street, King Street, Market St, Campbell St, Hunter St, Bridge St, Erskine St and Goulburn Street. He noted that most other streets in the City lacked kerbing and guttering, that most footpaths were in bad condition and that most streets were not properly formed.
For most of 1847, however, his attention was focussed on securing Sydney’s water supply. Frequently, parts of Sydney were without water. Sheilds made a survey of the supply route. Urgent work was needed on the water tunnel bringing water from the Lachlan Swamp (now Centennial Park) to Sydney. The tunnel shaft and some of the pipes had collapsed. Repairs were made and the pipe was extended to the Hyde Park Fountain for public supply under Sheilds’ supervision.
Works initiated or completed during Sheilds’ time as City Surveyor include the following:
Mapping and survey work:
- mapping cross sections of the streets of the City;
- mapping the water mains of Sydney and the water supply route from Lachlan Swamp;
- setting the permanent levels of various streets such as Clarence Street, Abercrombie Street, Elizabeth Street South and George Street South;
Street Cleansing:
- acquiring equipment for watering streets;
- recommending more effective and less expensive methods of street cleansing;
Street Works:
- drawing up specifications and estimates for many works to streets;
- kerbing and guttering and blue metalling of many of the City streets such as George Street, Parramatta Street, Goulburn Street;
- continuation of work on the Argyle Cut which had been halted for some time;
- the design and commencement of work on the stone arch bridge over the Argyle Cut at Princes Street, (the bridge was operational but not fully completed until alterations and additions to the east side of the bridge in 1867-68);
- acquisition of a plough for street excavation;
Water Works:
- laying pipe from the Tunnel (the water tunnel from Lachlan Swamp) to Hyde Park and repairing the Tunnel;
- laying water pipes in Pitt Street, between Park and Hunter Streets; at Millers Point; in Hunter Street; the west side of George Street from Bathurst to Liverpool Streets; Elizabeth St between King and Hunter; Jamieson St;
- preparing statements of probable revenue from water rates upon installation of water pipes such as in George Street, Castlereagh Street, Parramatta Street;
- installing more water fountains in the City to supply areas lacking piped water to premises;
- drawing up specifications for water supply equipment (pipes, stop locks etc);
- investigating drainage in Sussex Street, Clarence, Kent, lower George Street and in King Street.
Francis Webb Sheilds, Engineer, Sydney Railway Company (1849-1851)
Sheilds had worked on the design and building of railways so it is not surprising that, while serving as City Surveyor, he was one of the persons called to give evidence before the NSW Legislative Council Select Committee on Railways in July 1848. Sheilds stated that he “was bred to the profession of railway engineer” and he alluded to his experience in working under noted rail engineer Charles Vignoles in England and Ireland. He was enthusiastic about the prospect of a railway serving the neighbourhood of Sydney.
After the setting up of the Provisional Committee of the Sydney Railway Company in September 1848 with Charles Cowper M.L.C. as Chairman, Sheilds was invited to become its Engineer. Subsequently, he was appointed Engineer on 9 January 1849.
Sheilds was assigned the task of identifying and surveying suitable routes for a railway from Sydney to Parramatta and from Sydney to Liverpool. The Company was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 10 October 1849 and Sheilds presented a comprehensive report to a meeting of shareholders on 13 November 1849 at which the first directors were elected. Sheilds’ report was published in full in the Sydney Morning Herald on the following day. Sheilds detailed the routes, predicted future usage of the lines, and made detailed costs for the whole work, including earth works, fences, station houses, rails and the labour involved.
By May 1850, the Company had raised sufficient capital to commence work. A contractor, William Wallis, was engaged and work started on the terminal station at Redfern and on part of the line between Croydon and Lidcombe. Very soon, Wallis struck financial troubles as did the Company. Gold had been found in NSW. Men of all classes rushed to the goldfields creating a shortage of labour and skills, an increase in wages and escalation in prices of goods. The economy of the colony was pushed into a state of inflation. Work on the lines was suspended and the new board of directors in October 1850 decided to reduce wages of key personnel, one of whom was the Chief Engineer. It was proposed to reduce Sheilds’ salary from £400 pa to £300. In response to this action and very probably to the uncertain future of the Company which was facing a huge blow-out in costs and a slow-down in capital raising, he resigned in November 1850 and departed NSW in February 1851 in company with his relatives, the two Misses Plunkett.
Among the technical decisions made by Sheilds in the design of the Sydney railway was that to use the line gauge of 5 feet 3 inches, known as the “Irish” gauge. During the 1840s in England, railways were built using several gauges. The so-called “standard” gauge, 4 feet 8½ inches, had been used by the pioneer railway engineer George Stephenson but the brilliant Isambard Kingdom Brunel advocated wider gauges and was in process of building the Great Western Railway using a gauge of 7 feet. A Royal Commission in Britain was appointed in 1845 to evaluate the gauges and assess the problems caused by the use of different gauges and, although it had been clearly demonstrated in staged races that the broader gauge was capable of sustaining higher speeds and gave a more stable ride, the Commission found that economic considerations outweighed all others: land acquisition was cheaper for the narrow gauge and conversion of existing broad gauge to narrow would be cheaper than the converse.
The British Parliament passed the Gauge Act in 1846 setting the use of “standard” gauge for future railways in England and the slightly wider gauge of 5 feet 3 inches for Ireland. The Act, however, also contained a clause allowing other gauges to be used if the specific Act of Parliament enabling the construction of a railway contained a clause naming another gauge. In the case of the Australian railways, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Grey, had directed the standard gauge be used but the Sydney Railway Company applied to Grey to use the Irish gauge and permission was given and all Australian Colonies were expected to follow suit. Railways in Victoria and South Australia were consequently built using that gauge. Unfortunately, upon resumption of work by the Sydney Railway Company in 1852, the Board and new Engineer decided to use standard gauge and the problem of incompatible gauges for the railways of Australia was created. On his appointment in 1856 as Engineer in Chief of NSW Government Railways (which had taken over the Sydney Railway Company), John Whitton advised conversion back to the Irish gauge but the political will was not sufficient.
Inspecting Engineer for NSW Government Railways, 1872-1875
Interestingly, Sheilds’ position as the first Engineer for the company that became the NSW Government Railways was not his last connection with NSW Railways. In 1872 Sheilds, who was by then a well-credentialed successful engineer resident in Kent with offices in Westminster, was appointed the Inspecting Engineer for NSWGR by the James Martin Government. Henry Parkes in answer to a question in the Legislative Assembly in November 1875 attributed the appointment directly to John Robertson, the Colonial Secretary in Martin’s Government. Sheilds’ role was to certify rails or other railway stock ordered in England as being of suitable quality and adhering to Government specifications. His appointment came to an ignominious end with his certification of defective rails and fastenings from the Park Gate Iron Company. The products were found by a Board of Inquiry in 1875 to be of very inferior quality, made of impure iron and badly worked, and not as specified. At least half of the total order of 66,000 tons was affected with a value of about £100,000. Sheilds’ certification of the rails seemed to point either to participation in a fraud or to a catastrophic failure, for whatever cause, to fulfil his duty of inspection and detect such a fraud.
Sheilds’ Professional Career from 1852 to his retirement in 1893
Sheilds arrived back in London in 1852 at the time of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations organised by Henry Cole, Prince Albert and members of the Royal Society. The Great Exhibition was housed in a purpose built exhibition building, the Crystal Palace, designed and erected by Joseph Paxton and located in Hyde Park in London. The building was constructed on a concrete foundation with timber floor and cast iron supporting columns and girders, with multiple glass panes in walls and roof. The building was 1851 feet long by 454 feet wide and used 900,000 square feet of glass. Much of the glass was covered with white canvas. It was decided to move the building to a permanent site at Sydenham (now Crystal Palace). The move began in August 1852 and was completed in June 1854 under Paxton’s direction. The Resident Engineer appointed in 1852 was Francis Webb Sheilds who held the position until 1858. At Sydenham, additions were made to the structure, including a concert hall and restaurant. Huge twin water towers were designed by Isambard Brunel to deliver water for fountains, cascades, water jets and other water features which had also been added.
Sheilds’ abilities were recognised by his peers when he was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in April 1856 and then elevated to Member of ICE in December 1859.
Sheilds, no doubt, gained much experience in working with iron in the re-erection and expansion of the Crystal Palace. He wrote a book entitled, The Strains on Structures of Ironwork which was published in 1861; it became a standard reference book for engineers.
Sheilds’ clearly used his experience with London’s Crystal Palace in his design and construction of the Crystal Palace built for the Portuguese International Exhibition at Oporto, Portugal, in 1865. This building stood until 1956 when it was demolished.
Sheilds office from 1857 was situated at Westminster and he was invited by the members of Government to give opinions and reports and submit various designs for innovative projects. His design for the Victoria Embankment on the Thames was accepted by the Royal Commission appointed in 1861 although the project was carried out by the Board of Works without his participation. He made reports to the Government on proposals for a harbour at Heligoland, the islands off Germany that were then a British Protectorate and he reported on sulphur springs in Iceland.
In Sydney, Sheilds would have encountered Robert Lowe as a NSW Parliamentarian. Lowe (later Lord Sherbrooke) was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British Parliament when he invited Sheilds in 1869 to report on a means of improving communication between England and France. He designed a bridge for the purpose but recommended that a tunnel would be a preferable solution. Nothing came of it just as nothing had come of a tunnel project under the Thames between Deptford and Millwall for which Parliament had passed approval but investors had failed to support.
His interests like many of the imaginative engineers of the 19th Century were wide but he also completed many practical projects such as construction of sewerage works and the building of bridges.
He never lost his interest in railways. He conducted railway trials in Riga, Latvia and designed the drainage of the city while he was at it. He was involved with Robert Lowe, Lord Sherbrooke, again in 1882 in a proposed atmospheric (powered by air pressure) railway to be built by the Galveston and Eagle Pass Air Line Railway Company in Texas. Lowe was one of the trustees for the bondholders and Sheilds was appointed Engineer. Nothing seems to have come of this venture.
He worked with other prominent engineers in large works such as the enlargement of the Rotherhithe repairing dock with Aitchison and the restoration of historic buildings such as Salisbury Cathedral with Sir Gilbert Scott.
He retired from Westminster in 1893 to live at Sholing near Southampton where he was not idle but completed sewerage works for nearby localities. He died there in 1906.
The Family of Francis Webb Sheilds (surname: Wentworth-Sheilds after 1877)
In 1860 Sheilds, by then aged 40, married Adelaide Baker in Dublin. She too had Irish gentry connections but the couple did not remain in Ireland. They lived at first at Paddington. Their first two children, Ada Margaret born 1861 and Jessie Isabel born 1864 were born in the vicinity. The family moved a little further east just over the boundary into Kent where their last three surviving children were born: Mabel Adelaide born 1865, Wentworth Francis born 1867 and Francis Ernest (known as Pat) born 1869.
Sheilds’ eldest son, Wentworth Francis Wentworth-Sheilds followed his grandfather’s footsteps into the clergy while the younger son Francis Ernest (Pat) Wentworth-Sheilds became a civil engineer like his father. He married Mary (Molly) Boyd Carpenter, daughter of Bishop William Boyd Carpenter.
The eldest son, Wentworth Francis Wentworth-Sheilds was educated at St Paul’s School and the University of London. He was ordained on 24 December 1899. He served as curate at Plumstead and then in fashionable St George’s Church, Bloomsbury. He married Annie Boyd Carpenter, another daughter of Bishop William Boyd Carpenter. Then in 1903 they set out for North Queensland to join his cousin Bishop Barlow at Townsville. Wentworth-Sheilds soon removed to Goulburn and southern NSW and after a short time relieving at All Saints Church, St Kilda in 1910, he became rector of the historic St James Church in Sydney where he served from 1910 until 1916. He was in that year elected Bishop of Armidale, NSW where he remained until 1929 when he returned to England, with his sons, both born in Australia; his wife died in 1927.
The bishop’s eldest son, also named Wentworth Francis Wentworth-Sheilds, while in Armidale met Emily Maud Jenkins, daughter of George Henry Vaughan Jenkins, an Armidale pastoralist descended from Shropshire gentry and Beatrice Mary Herbert, grand-daughter of the Earl of Powys. The two married in England in 1934. At the end of World War II, the couple divorced and Mrs Wentworth-Sheilds returned permanently to Australia with her two sons, Michael and Robert. Their families continue the Wentworth-Sheilds line in Australia.
Major Sources and References in brief:
Family and Genealogical:
Family papers in possession of family members including a family pedigree chart created by Sir John Bernard Burke, Office of Arms, Dublin, 1878;
Burke: General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales
Australian Dictionary of Biography, MUP, 1967, (online): entries for members of Wentworth, Plunkett, Callaghan and Wentworth-Sheilds families.
Sydney Morning Herald: Shipping Notices; Sheilds evidence to NSW Legislative Select Committee on Railways, July 1848;
British Census Records
Professional Career, City of Sydney
Sydney Morning Herald: reports/articles re: City Council; NSW LC Select Committee on the City Corporation, 1849;
City of Sydney Archives: Minutes of Council (CRS 7); Minutes of the Improvement Committee (CRS 10); Minutes of the Finance Committee (CRS 11); Reports of the Improvement Committee (CRS 21 & CRS 23); Reports of Special Committees (CRS 21); Letters Received and Sent Letters (CRS 26 & 27);
NSW Railways
Sydney Morning Herald: reports/articles re: NSW L.C. Select Committee on Railways, July 1848; Sydney Railway Company, 1849-52; defective rails etc certified by Inspecting Engineer, 1874-75
NSW GR: Centenary of NSW Railways, leaflet, 1955
Australian Heritage Commission, 2003, Linking a Nation: Australia’s Transport and Communications 1788-1970
Professional Career 1852-1906
Institution of Civil Engineers, Journal, Volume 168, obituary
LTC Rolt: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Longmans, 1957; re railways and Crystal Palace
http://whitefiles.org, Ray White, Architecture writings on the Crystal Palace
The Illustrated London News, 18 November 1865, woodcut engraving of the Crystal Palace of the Portuguese International Exhibition at Oporto, 1865 reproduced online at htpp://commons.wikimedia.org
Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, (Dublin): advertisements for Galveston and Eagle Pass Air Line Railway Co
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Marilyn Mason, June 2014
Relationship legacy dataRELATED TO: City Engineer and City Surveyors Department I AG-0086 (8/6/1846 to 29/1/1849) - City Surveyor
RELATED TO: City Engineer and City Surveyors Department I AG-0086 (9/9/1843 to 7/6/1846) - Assistant to City Surveyor
Occupational historyDraftsman and Assistant to City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 6 September 1843.City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 8 June 1846; resigned 29 January 1849.Engineer for Sydney Railway Company, 1849-1851.Legacy dataRegistered by: Stevens, Mark
Registered date: 19/06/2014
Amendments:
Last amendment date: None
Minister: NoneUpdated Date: 19/06/2014
Updated User: mstevensSource system ID39
Draftsman and Assistant to City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 6 September 1843.
City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 8 June 1846; resigned 29 January 1849.
Engineer for Sydney Railway Company, 1849-1851.
He was appointed 9 January 1849 by the Provisional Committee of the Sydney Railway Company to survey the proposed railway lines from Sydney to Parramatta and Sydney to Liverpool. Upon the incorporation of The Sydney Railway Company on 14 November 1849, he was appointed Engineer.
Inspecting Engineer to NSW Railways 1872-1875, resident in England.
Personal and Family History
Francis Webb Sheilds was born in 1820 in County Meath, Ireland and educated in Dublin.
Sheilds’ family were members of the Anglo-Irish Gentry and landed classes. Sheilds’ father was the Reverend Wentworth Sheilds, rector of Newtown, County Meath. Sheilds’ ancestor, Robert, was granted land at Fyanstown, County Meath in 1667. The Reverend Wentworth Sheilds’ mother was Sarah Wentworth, the last of the line of a branch of the Irish Wentworth family descended from the noble line of the Wentworths of Yorkshire. This connection was recognised by Queen Victoria when Francis Webb Sheilds and his elder brother John Gore Sheilds were permitted by Royal Licence in 1877 to add the prefix surname Wentworth to their name. Accordingly in later references to the two men their surname appears as Wentworth-Sheilds and this is the name used by their descendants. There is a link also to the Wentworth family in Sydney of Darcy Wentworth and his prominent son William Charles Wentworth who were also descended from a branch of the Irish Wentworth family and whose link to Rockingham, Lord Fitzwilliam and the Earls of Strafford was recognised by those families. Their common ancestor is probably Darcy Wentworth who was granted land at Fyanstown, County Meath in the 1680s.
Francis Webb Sheilds’ mother was a member of the Plunkett family who also had links to the Irish Wentworth family. The Plunkett family was represented in Sydney by John Hubert Plunkett who was born County Roscommon, Ireland and educated in Dublin. He served as Solicitor General of NSW from 1832 to 1841, and concurrently as Attorney General of NSW from February 1836; he remained Attorney-General until 1856; from 1843 to 1856 he was appointed a member of the Executive Council of NSW and was later an elected MLC and holder of many high offices. From late 1841 until his return to Sydney in August 1843, Plunkett took leave of absence to deal with family matters in Ireland and it seems reasonable to assume that he may have alerted Francis Sheilds to the opportunities available to an ambitious young man in Sydney and NSW.
Professional Training.
Francis Webb Sheilds was apprenticed in 1837 at the age of 17 to Charles Blacker Vignoles, prominent British railway engineer who was responsible for the survey, design or building of many railways in England and Ireland during the 1830s and 1840s. Vignoles had become a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in1827 and was appointed the first Professor of Civil Engineering at University College London in 1841.
Arrival in Sydney and employment by City of Sydney Council
Francis Webb Sheilds left Portsmouth England in October 1842 aboard the ship St George and arrived in Sydney on 23 January 1843 In company with two Misses Plunkett. Sheilds arrived in difficult times. The Colony was in the grip of a financial depression; there were many bankruptcies, many business failures and much unemployment.
On 6 September 1843, Sheilds was appointed Draughtsman and Assistant City Surveyor to the City of Sydney with an annual salary of £120. He was selected from 20 candidates. The Council in closed session eliminated 17 candidates and made their final selection from M Burrowes (6 votes), WH Wells (8 votes) and Sheilds (10 votes).
At the end of August 1843, Council had decided to hold a competition for the design of a Town Hall and Sheilds took the opportunity to submit an entry. In November, the Selection Committee met to consider the entries but it was decided that Sheilds was ineligible as he was employed by Council. Upon his withdrawal of his entry, the Town Clerk officially returned his plans while informing him that “I have at the same time been commissioned to express to you the opinion of the Committee that your plans and specifications are very creditable to you.”
In April 1843 a Special Committee of Council had recommended that a general survey of the City should be made and a map produced to assist in re-forming, repairing and draining the streets of the City. The task was assigned to Sheilds and throughout 1844 he surveyed Sydney to complete a correct and detailed scale map of the city. He worked on the survey in the daylight hours before and after his attendance between 9 am and 4 pm at the office of the City Surveyor. Sheilds finished the drawing and colouring of the map during 1845 and later that year he made a tracing of the map for the Governor of NSW. In the finalisation of the Map and its copy, he was assisted by the District Surveyor Buchanan.
The map showed the streets of the City, the boundaries of the Parishes and the City Wards, the shoreline continuously from Elizabeth Bay to Blackwattle Bay and the locations of buildings in the City, often with the owner’s name, and coded to show whether a public or private building and whether composed of brick/stone or wood. The map also showed such City features as the various wharfs with their names, the Government Paddocks, the City cattle pens at the Hay Corn and Cattle Market, the gardens at Elizabeth Bay and Mrs Macquarie’s Chair. The map was apparently much used in the City Surveyor’s Department. A tracing of it was made in 1896 or 1897 because its condition had become “very dilapidated” and that copy is now held in the City of Sydney Archives while a scanned copy can be seen on the City website.
By 1844-45, Sheilds was living at 147 Elizabeth St with at least one of the Misses Plunkett. Their names are listed in Low’s City of Sydney Directory for 1844-45 and Sheilds’ name appears in the City of Sydney 1845 Assessment Books for Macquarie Ward as the ratepayer at 147 Elizabeth St. The dwelling is described as a two storey brick house with shingle roof, 5 rooms, and a kitchen and as having a gross annual rental value of £60; he was certainly not renting cheap accommodation. Considering his salary at this time was only £120 per annum, it seems likely that he was able to rely on Plunkett family resources.
When the Council in January 1846 requested its officers to give written reports on the responsibilities of their offices, Sheilds presented a month by month account of all his activities during 1845. His regular weekly tasks included many of a clerical nature such as preparing lists, entering letters, writing out accounts and pay lists and keeping the books of the Improvement Committee. He was also sometimes seconded to the Town Clerk making copies of the Citizens Lists or writing out reports or lists for the Town Clerk of works or details of the streets. The tasks in the City Surveyor’s Department involving his skills and experience as surveyor included taking levels and making plans and sections of a number of the City’s streets and making measurements or costing such works as kerbing and guttering.
In 1846, the City Surveyor, William Moir found himself caught in controversy regarding works performed under contract by John Dingwall in Goulburn and Castlereagh Streets. There were arguments about the quality of the work, arguments as to whether deficient works or works contrary to the contract had been certified by Moir and attempts by the Improvement Committee to alter or renege on payments. Dingwall threatened legal action. Moir tendered his resignation in May and it was accepted on 1 June 1846. Sheilds was appointed City Surveyor pro tem and applied for the permanent position which was given to him on 8 June.
In his application, Sheilds wrote
“I have been regularly educated as a Civil Engineer on the public works of England - that I am well acquainted with surveying, building, road-making, draining and estimating and measuring work, having now been for nearly three years Assistant Surveyor to the Corporation, I would respectfully refer to your knowledge of my general character for good conduct and application to business. During that time I have surveyed and executed a map of the City and made many other drawings, designs and estimates under the superintendence of the late City Surveyor.”
The position carried a salary of £300 pa and required two sureties to sign a bond for a substantial amount (reduced to 3 times annual salary in 1848). The identity of the two sureties demonstrates Sheilds links to the highest level of the legal fraternity of Sydney. His first surety was John Dillon Moore who was NSW Crown Solicitor from 1839 to 1859. His second surety was Thomas Callaghan who had graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1836, migrated to NSW in 1839 and was admitted as barrister in that year. He was appointed Land Commissioner and pro tem Crown Prosecutor in 1841, the latter becoming a permanent appointment in 1845. He was the legal scholar who, in 1844, produced a compilation of the Acts and Ordinances of NSW which became known as Callaghan’s Acts. He was later to become one of the first judges of the District Court.
During his two and a half years as City Surveyor from his appointment on 8 June 1846 until his resignation on 29 January 1849, Sheilds oversaw many projects improving Sydney’s streets and water supply.
Council’s processes, the behaviour of Councillors and Council actions during this period were strongly criticised in a NSW Legislative Council Inquiry appointed in May 1849 which was to result eventually in the dismissal of Council, the appointment of Commissioners and the re-drafting of the Municipal Council Incorporation Act. Council operated with several permanent Committees composed of Aldermen and Councillors which examined proposals and made recommendations to Council on work to be done. Two of the major committees of this period were the Water Committee dealing with water supply, sewerage and drainage issues and the Improvement Committee dealing with all works on City streets or City properties.
The Improvement Committee had during 1846-49 twelve to fourteen members and met at least weekly. Works proposed to be undertaken were usually referred to the City Surveyor for a report; then at a later meeting the matter would be examined and debated; a decision might be made or the matter stood over for a time; a decision already made might be rescinded at the next meeting. When its decisions were placed before Council there was usually yet more consideration and debate, particularly from the Councillors who were not members of the Committee and likely as not the matter might be referred back to the Committee for further debate. The process was cumbersome and slow. The Committee from time to time set up sub-committees to investigate proposals in greater depth. These sub-committees also demanded reports and the presence of the City Surveyor to inspect in their company the location of a job of work and present explanations and observations. Although in November 1845, the Committee decided that it would no longer require the attendance of the City Surveyor at its meetings, he was required to be in his office and available at the time of meetings while his assistant took the minutes.
Sheilds was responsible for the management of the labour force employed by Council on a weekly basis (the ‘day labourers’) and for the purchase and care of Council equipment for use by the labourers in street works, quarrying, street cleansing and the water supply. He was also responsible for the documenting of the activities of his Department and for the records of the Improvement Committee.
In November 1846, Sheilds reported that the major streets most in need of urgent repair and kerbing and guttering were George St, Parramatta Street, King Street, Market St, Campbell St, Hunter St, Bridge St, Erskine St and Goulburn Street. He noted that most other streets in the City lacked kerbing and guttering, that most footpaths were in bad condition and that most streets were not properly formed.
For most of 1847, however, his attention was focussed on securing Sydney’s water supply. Frequently, parts of Sydney were without water. Sheilds made a survey of the supply route. Urgent work was needed on the water tunnel bringing water from the Lachlan Swamp (now Centennial Park) to Sydney. The tunnel shaft and some of the pipes had collapsed. Repairs were made and the pipe was extended to the Hyde Park Fountain for public supply under Sheilds’ supervision.
Works initiated or completed during Sheilds’ time as City Surveyor include the following:
Mapping and survey work:
- mapping cross sections of the streets of the City;
- mapping the water mains of Sydney and the water supply route from Lachlan Swamp;
- setting the permanent levels of various streets such as Clarence Street, Abercrombie Street, Elizabeth Street South and George Street South;
Street Cleansing:
- acquiring equipment for watering streets;
- recommending more effective and less expensive methods of street cleansing;
Street Works:
- drawing up specifications and estimates for many works to streets;
- kerbing and guttering and blue metalling of many of the City streets such as George Street, Parramatta Street, Goulburn Street;
- continuation of work on the Argyle Cut which had been halted for some time;
- the design and commencement of work on the stone arch bridge over the Argyle Cut at Princes Street, (the bridge was operational but not fully completed until alterations and additions to the east side of the bridge in 1867-68);
- acquisition of a plough for street excavation;
Water Works:
- laying pipe from the Tunnel (the water tunnel from Lachlan Swamp) to Hyde Park and repairing the Tunnel;
- laying water pipes in Pitt Street, between Park and Hunter Streets; at Millers Point; in Hunter Street; the west side of George Street from Bathurst to Liverpool Streets; Elizabeth St between King and Hunter; Jamieson St;
- preparing statements of probable revenue from water rates upon installation of water pipes such as in George Street, Castlereagh Street, Parramatta Street;
- installing more water fountains in the City to supply areas lacking piped water to premises;
- drawing up specifications for water supply equipment (pipes, stop locks etc);
- investigating drainage in Sussex Street, Clarence, Kent, lower George Street and in King Street.
Francis Webb Sheilds, Engineer, Sydney Railway Company (1849-1851)
Sheilds had worked on the design and building of railways so it is not surprising that, while serving as City Surveyor, he was one of the persons called to give evidence before the NSW Legislative Council Select Committee on Railways in July 1848. Sheilds stated that he “was bred to the profession of railway engineer” and he alluded to his experience in working under noted rail engineer Charles Vignoles in England and Ireland. He was enthusiastic about the prospect of a railway serving the neighbourhood of Sydney.
After the setting up of the Provisional Committee of the Sydney Railway Company in September 1848 with Charles Cowper M.L.C. as Chairman, Sheilds was invited to become its Engineer. Subsequently, he was appointed Engineer on 9 January 1849.
Sheilds was assigned the task of identifying and surveying suitable routes for a railway from Sydney to Parramatta and from Sydney to Liverpool. The Company was incorporated by Act of Parliament on 10 October 1849 and Sheilds presented a comprehensive report to a meeting of shareholders on 13 November 1849 at which the first directors were elected. Sheilds’ report was published in full in the Sydney Morning Herald on the following day. Sheilds detailed the routes, predicted future usage of the lines, and made detailed costs for the whole work, including earth works, fences, station houses, rails and the labour involved.
By May 1850, the Company had raised sufficient capital to commence work. A contractor, William Wallis, was engaged and work started on the terminal station at Redfern and on part of the line between Croydon and Lidcombe. Very soon, Wallis struck financial troubles as did the Company. Gold had been found in NSW. Men of all classes rushed to the goldfields creating a shortage of labour and skills, an increase in wages and escalation in prices of goods. The economy of the colony was pushed into a state of inflation. Work on the lines was suspended and the new board of directors in October 1850 decided to reduce wages of key personnel, one of whom was the Chief Engineer. It was proposed to reduce Sheilds’ salary from £400 pa to £300. In response to this action and very probably to the uncertain future of the Company which was facing a huge blow-out in costs and a slow-down in capital raising, he resigned in November 1850 and departed NSW in February 1851 in company with his relatives, the two Misses Plunkett.
Among the technical decisions made by Sheilds in the design of the Sydney railway was that to use the line gauge of 5 feet 3 inches, known as the “Irish” gauge. During the 1840s in England, railways were built using several gauges. The so-called “standard” gauge, 4 feet 8½ inches, had been used by the pioneer railway engineer George Stephenson but the brilliant Isambard Kingdom Brunel advocated wider gauges and was in process of building the Great Western Railway using a gauge of 7 feet. A Royal Commission in Britain was appointed in 1845 to evaluate the gauges and assess the problems caused by the use of different gauges and, although it had been clearly demonstrated in staged races that the broader gauge was capable of sustaining higher speeds and gave a more stable ride, the Commission found that economic considerations outweighed all others: land acquisition was cheaper for the narrow gauge and conversion of existing broad gauge to narrow would be cheaper than the converse.
The British Parliament passed the Gauge Act in 1846 setting the use of “standard” gauge for future railways in England and the slightly wider gauge of 5 feet 3 inches for Ireland. The Act, however, also contained a clause allowing other gauges to be used if the specific Act of Parliament enabling the construction of a railway contained a clause naming another gauge. In the case of the Australian railways, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Grey, had directed the standard gauge be used but the Sydney Railway Company applied to Grey to use the Irish gauge and permission was given and all Australian Colonies were expected to follow suit. Railways in Victoria and South Australia were consequently built using that gauge. Unfortunately, upon resumption of work by the Sydney Railway Company in 1852, the Board and new Engineer decided to use standard gauge and the problem of incompatible gauges for the railways of Australia was created. On his appointment in 1856 as Engineer in Chief of NSW Government Railways (which had taken over the Sydney Railway Company), John Whitton advised conversion back to the Irish gauge but the political will was not sufficient.
Inspecting Engineer for NSW Government Railways, 1872-1875
Interestingly, Sheilds’ position as the first Engineer for the company that became the NSW Government Railways was not his last connection with NSW Railways. In 1872 Sheilds, who was by then a well-credentialed successful engineer resident in Kent with offices in Westminster, was appointed the Inspecting Engineer for NSWGR by the James Martin Government. Henry Parkes in answer to a question in the Legislative Assembly in November 1875 attributed the appointment directly to John Robertson, the Colonial Secretary in Martin’s Government. Sheilds’ role was to certify rails or other railway stock ordered in England as being of suitable quality and adhering to Government specifications. His appointment came to an ignominious end with his certification of defective rails and fastenings from the Park Gate Iron Company. The products were found by a Board of Inquiry in 1875 to be of very inferior quality, made of impure iron and badly worked, and not as specified. At least half of the total order of 66,000 tons was affected with a value of about £100,000. Sheilds’ certification of the rails seemed to point either to participation in a fraud or to a catastrophic failure, for whatever cause, to fulfil his duty of inspection and detect such a fraud.
Sheilds’ Professional Career from 1852 to his retirement in 1893
Sheilds arrived back in London in 1852 at the time of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations organised by Henry Cole, Prince Albert and members of the Royal Society. The Great Exhibition was housed in a purpose built exhibition building, the Crystal Palace, designed and erected by Joseph Paxton and located in Hyde Park in London. The building was constructed on a concrete foundation with timber floor and cast iron supporting columns and girders, with multiple glass panes in walls and roof. The building was 1851 feet long by 454 feet wide and used 900,000 square feet of glass. Much of the glass was covered with white canvas. It was decided to move the building to a permanent site at Sydenham (now Crystal Palace). The move began in August 1852 and was completed in June 1854 under Paxton’s direction. The Resident Engineer appointed in 1852 was Francis Webb Sheilds who held the position until 1858. At Sydenham, additions were made to the structure, including a concert hall and restaurant. Huge twin water towers were designed by Isambard Brunel to deliver water for fountains, cascades, water jets and other water features which had also been added.
Sheilds’ abilities were recognised by his peers when he was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in April 1856 and then elevated to Member of ICE in December 1859.
Sheilds, no doubt, gained much experience in working with iron in the re-erection and expansion of the Crystal Palace. He wrote a book entitled, The Strains on Structures of Ironwork which was published in 1861; it became a standard reference book for engineers.
Sheilds’ clearly used his experience with London’s Crystal Palace in his design and construction of the Crystal Palace built for the Portuguese International Exhibition at Oporto, Portugal, in 1865. This building stood until 1956 when it was demolished.
Sheilds office from 1857 was situated at Westminster and he was invited by the members of Government to give opinions and reports and submit various designs for innovative projects. His design for the Victoria Embankment on the Thames was accepted by the Royal Commission appointed in 1861 although the project was carried out by the Board of Works without his participation. He made reports to the Government on proposals for a harbour at Heligoland, the islands off Germany that were then a British Protectorate and he reported on sulphur springs in Iceland.
In Sydney, Sheilds would have encountered Robert Lowe as a NSW Parliamentarian. Lowe (later Lord Sherbrooke) was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British Parliament when he invited Sheilds in 1869 to report on a means of improving communication between England and France. He designed a bridge for the purpose but recommended that a tunnel would be a preferable solution. Nothing came of it just as nothing had come of a tunnel project under the Thames between Deptford and Millwall for which Parliament had passed approval but investors had failed to support.
His interests like many of the imaginative engineers of the 19th Century were wide but he also completed many practical projects such as construction of sewerage works and the building of bridges.
He never lost his interest in railways. He conducted railway trials in Riga, Latvia and designed the drainage of the city while he was at it. He was involved with Robert Lowe, Lord Sherbrooke, again in 1882 in a proposed atmospheric (powered by air pressure) railway to be built by the Galveston and Eagle Pass Air Line Railway Company in Texas. Lowe was one of the trustees for the bondholders and Sheilds was appointed Engineer. Nothing seems to have come of this venture.
He worked with other prominent engineers in large works such as the enlargement of the Rotherhithe repairing dock with Aitchison and the restoration of historic buildings such as Salisbury Cathedral with Sir Gilbert Scott.
He retired from Westminster in 1893 to live at Sholing near Southampton where he was not idle but completed sewerage works for nearby localities. He died there in 1906.
The Family of Francis Webb Sheilds (surname: Wentworth-Sheilds after 1877)
In 1860 Sheilds, by then aged 40, married Adelaide Baker in Dublin. She too had Irish gentry connections but the couple did not remain in Ireland. They lived at first at Paddington. Their first two children, Ada Margaret born 1861 and Jessie Isabel born 1864 were born in the vicinity. The family moved a little further east just over the boundary into Kent where their last three surviving children were born: Mabel Adelaide born 1865, Wentworth Francis born 1867 and Francis Ernest (known as Pat) born 1869.
Sheilds’ eldest son, Wentworth Francis Wentworth-Sheilds followed his grandfather’s footsteps into the clergy while the younger son Francis Ernest (Pat) Wentworth-Sheilds became a civil engineer like his father. He married Mary (Molly) Boyd Carpenter, daughter of Bishop William Boyd Carpenter.
The eldest son, Wentworth Francis Wentworth-Sheilds was educated at St Paul’s School and the University of London. He was ordained on 24 December 1899. He served as curate at Plumstead and then in fashionable St George’s Church, Bloomsbury. He married Annie Boyd Carpenter, another daughter of Bishop William Boyd Carpenter. Then in 1903 they set out for North Queensland to join his cousin Bishop Barlow at Townsville. Wentworth-Sheilds soon removed to Goulburn and southern NSW and after a short time relieving at All Saints Church, St Kilda in 1910, he became rector of the historic St James Church in Sydney where he served from 1910 until 1916. He was in that year elected Bishop of Armidale, NSW where he remained until 1929 when he returned to England, with his sons, both born in Australia; his wife died in 1927.
The bishop’s eldest son, also named Wentworth Francis Wentworth-Sheilds, while in Armidale met Emily Maud Jenkins, daughter of George Henry Vaughan Jenkins, an Armidale pastoralist descended from Shropshire gentry and Beatrice Mary Herbert, grand-daughter of the Earl of Powys. The two married in England in 1934. At the end of World War II, the couple divorced and Mrs Wentworth-Sheilds returned permanently to Australia with her two sons, Michael and Robert. Their families continue the Wentworth-Sheilds line in Australia.
Major Sources and References in brief:
Family and Genealogical:
Family papers in possession of family members including a family pedigree chart created by Sir John Bernard Burke, Office of Arms, Dublin, 1878;
Burke: General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales
Australian Dictionary of Biography, MUP, 1967, (online): entries for members of Wentworth, Plunkett, Callaghan and Wentworth-Sheilds families.
Sydney Morning Herald: Shipping Notices; Sheilds evidence to NSW Legislative Select Committee on Railways, July 1848;
British Census Records
Professional Career, City of Sydney
Sydney Morning Herald: reports/articles re: City Council; NSW LC Select Committee on the City Corporation, 1849;
City of Sydney Archives: Minutes of Council (CRS 7); Minutes of the Improvement Committee (CRS 10); Minutes of the Finance Committee (CRS 11); Reports of the Improvement Committee (CRS 21 & CRS 23); Reports of Special Committees (CRS 21); Letters Received and Sent Letters (CRS 26 & 27);
NSW Railways
Sydney Morning Herald: reports/articles re: NSW L.C. Select Committee on Railways, July 1848; Sydney Railway Company, 1849-52; defective rails etc certified by Inspecting Engineer, 1874-75
NSW GR: Centenary of NSW Railways, leaflet, 1955
Australian Heritage Commission, 2003, Linking a Nation: Australia’s Transport and Communications 1788-1970
Professional Career 1852-1906
Institution of Civil Engineers, Journal, Volume 168, obituary
LTC Rolt: Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Longmans, 1957; re railways and Crystal Palace
http://whitefiles.org, Ray White, Architecture writings on the Crystal Palace
The Illustrated London News, 18 November 1865, woodcut engraving of the Crystal Palace of the Portuguese International Exhibition at Oporto, 1865 reproduced online at htpp://commons.wikimedia.org
Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, (Dublin): advertisements for Galveston and Eagle Pass Air Line Railway Co
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Marilyn Mason, June 2014
Relationship legacy dataRELATED TO: City Engineer and City Surveyors Department I AG-0086 (8/6/1846 to 29/1/1849) - City Surveyor
RELATED TO: City Engineer and City Surveyors Department I AG-0086 (9/9/1843 to 7/6/1846) - Assistant to City Surveyor
Occupational historyDraftsman and Assistant to City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 6 September 1843.City Surveyor, City of Sydney, appointed 8 June 1846; resigned 29 January 1849.Engineer for Sydney Railway Company, 1849-1851.Legacy dataRegistered by: Stevens, Mark
Registered date: 19/06/2014
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Minister: NoneUpdated Date: 19/06/2014
Updated User: mstevensSource system ID39
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CollectionPeople and PositionsRelated agenciesCity Engineer and City Surveyor's Department I
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Date registered5th December 2018Registered byData Migration UserRegistration statusApprovedDetailed recordYes
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Sheilds,Francis Webb [PE-000039]. City of Sydney Recollect - UAT, accessed 04 Aug 2025, https://cosauat.recollect.net.au/nodes/view/62710