Arthur Crouch Folkard
Arthur Crouch Folkard (1836-1896)
1897 Obituary [1]
ARTHUR CROUCH FOLHARD, born on the 12th February, 1836, was the son of Mr. Daniel Manthorp Folkard, of Brighton.
On the expiration of his pupilage with a firm of contractors he joined the Army Works Corps and served with it in the Crimean War. At Sebastopol he was engaged in making drawings of the dock gates and machinery to be sent to the Home Government, in addition to the routine work of maintenance of roads, huts and camp-drainage.
On the termination of the war he returned to England in June, 1856, and in the following December was appointed to the Public Works Department of Ceylon.
Mr. Folkard’s first employment, on arriving in Ceylon, was the preparation of a plan of Colombo and its environs, on the completion of which he was appointed Second Engineer to the Northern Province of the island.
In 1859 he was promoted to the charge of the province, which post he held for about six years, when he was transferred in a similar capacity to the Eastern Province. The works for which he was responsible were of an important character, embracing the construction of jetties and harbours, bridges and public buildings, irrigation and drainage, and the maintenance of highways and roads, and he had on occasions as many as 3,000 men under his control.
He designed and carried out improvements in the harbours of Jaffna and Point Pedro; a bridge, 950 feet in length, across the Vamatipulam, and smaller bridges varying in length from 50 feet to 180 feet; and by judicious drainage he afforded great relief to the Jaffna district, which had been flooded annually to a depth of 2 feet to 3 feet.
Independently of his work under Government, Mr. Folkard acted as manager of the Colombo and Madras Steam Shipping Company, while for the Ceylon Company he designed and arranged for the carrying out of a system of light locomotive lines to the interior of the island.
In 1869 Mr. Folkard resigned the service of the Public Works Department and practically retired from the profession. About four years later be returned to England and took up his residence in London, writing occasionally for the technical press and remaining a constant correspondent of the Ceylon Observer.
In 1873 he designed an improved apparatus for lowering and raising, engaging and disengaging ships’ boats, which he described to the United Service Institution in the following year.
Mr. Folkard died at his residence, 2 Portman Mansions, Baker Street, on the 26th December, 1896, from pneumonia.
He was elected an Associate on the 2nd Nay, 1865, and was transferred to the class of Member on the 7th December, 1869.