Charles Colson
Charles Colson (1839-1915)
1916 Obituary [1]
CHARLES COLSON, C.B., late Deputy Engineer-in-Chief to the Admiralty, died at St. Leonards-on-Sea on the 8th June, 1915, aged 76.
He joined the Admiralty in 1866, and was for several years assistant engineer on the Portsmouth Dockyard Extension.
After acting from 1881 to 1883 as Civil Engineer of Portsmouth Dockyard, he was sent to Malta to design a new naval dock there, and his designs being accepted, he was promoted Superintending Civil Engineer and entrusted with the construction of the work, which he carried out successfully and economically by departmental labour. While stationed at Malta he designed an extension of Gibraltar Dockyard, afterwards carried out under his supervision.
In 1892 he was appointed Superintending Civil Engineer at Devonport, and 2 years later he became Assistant Director of Works at the Admiralty.
On the formation in 1835 of the Naval Works Loan Department, Mr. Colson was appointed to this branch as Deputy Civil Engineer-in-Chief. He was responsible, under Sir Henry Pilkington, for the design and construction of much Admiralty work at Portsmouth, Keyham, Gibraltar, Hong-Kong, the Cape and elsewhere. Mr. Colson retired in 1905, having received a C.B. in recognition of his public services. He was the author of a work on “Dock Construction,” and of several Papers contributed to the Proceedings, for one of which he was awarded a Telford Premium.
Mr. Colson was elected an Associate of The Institution on the 7th February, 1871, was subsequently placed among the Associate Members, and was transferred to the class of Members on the 11th March, 1884.