Arthur Hill
Arthur Hill (c1858-1927) C.I.E., Chief Engineer for Irrigation in the Bombay Presidency.
1927 Obituary[1]
"Mr. Hill, who was sixty-nine years, of age, had a distinguished career in India. After passing through Coopers Hill College, he entered the service of the Public Works Department, Bombay, in 1880, as an assistant irrigation engineer, and rose in the service till, in 1906, he was made superintending engineer, becoming then Chief Engineer and Joint Secretary to the Department. During his occupancy of those positions he was largely responsible for the vast irrigation works which were carried out in the Bombay Presidency in accordance with the recommendations of the Commission appointed by Lord Curzon. He retired in 1913."
1927 Obituary[2]
We record with regret the death, at the age of 69, of Mr. Arthur Hill, C.I.E., who retired from service in India in 1913. Mr. Arthur Hill was the son of the late Rev. A. Hill, of Leicester. He entered the Royal Engineering College, Cooper’s Hill, in 1876, passing out in 1879. After a year’s practical training with Messrs. Westwood and Baillie, on bridge work, &c., at Greenwich and under Mr. Bernays on the Chatham Dockyard Extension, Mr. Hill joined the Public Works Department service of Bombay, in 1880, as an assistant irrigation engineer. He was at first under Mr. W. Clarke, executive engineer, on the Mutha Canal, but after eight months was transferred to the Nira Canal, where he was at first under Mr. J. E. Whiting, executive engineer. He was promoted to executive engineer in 1892, and to the grade of superintending engineer in 1906.
From 1906 until his retirement in 1913, he was Chief Engineer and Joint Secretary to the Government of Bombay. He was in this way connected with many of the important irrigation developments inaugurated and following the Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon. In his junior days he was engaged on the calculations for the designs of the original Bhatgar Dam, having served also on the survey of this project, and had actual charge, as executive engineer, of the construction of the dam and weir. This structure was about 4,000 ft. long and 100 ft. high. This was intended to ensure an all-year-round supply for the Nira Canal. The dam impounded 4,642 million c. ft. of water when full, of which about 4,148 million were available for irrigation. The water drawn off was regulated by headworks at Vir, where there was additional storage. Mr. Hill was connected with the latter work, having temporary charge of the construction of the 2,000-ft. weir at this point. The Nir canal system commanded about 136,000 acres, the main canal having a length of 101 miles, with distributaries of a length of 110 miles. These works are illustrated and described in Buckley’s Irrigation Works in India.
It may be remembered that the original Bhatgar Dam has now been superseded by a much larger structure known as the Lloyd Dam, a work 5,333 ft. in length and 190 ft. high. This dam contains 214 million c. ft. of masonry, and is said to exceed in this respect any other dam in the world. The amount of water now impounded is 24,000 million c. ft., the area of the lake formed being 15,000 square miles, and submerging the old dam. The total area commanded by the new work is 900,000 acres.
Another important storage work with which Mr. Hill was connected was the Tansa dam of the Bombay Waterworks. For this Mr. Hill was lent by the Government to the Municipality of Bombay, and he acted as assistant resident engineer on the dam works for something like two years, until their completion in 1891. He was awarded the C.I.E. in 1903."