Henry Colthurst Godwin
Henry Colthurst Godwin (1858-1892)
1893 Obituary [1]
HENRY COLTHURST GODWIN, second son of the late Mr. James Godwin of Huntworth, Stake Bishop, near Bristol, was born at Stoke Bishop on the 18th of September, 1858.
He was educated at Clifton College, on leaving which in 1877 he went for a voyage to Australia, returning to England by way of San Francisco.
After serving for six months with Waddell and Co on the construction of the Llanelly and Mynyddmawr Railway, he passed through the three-years course in engineering at the University of Edinburgh.
In 1882 he went to Manitoba, and two years later obtained a commission as Dominion Land Surveyor, after which he was engaged on the Manitoba and North West Railway, on the Canadian Pacific Railway and on drainage and bridge work in Manitoba for the Dominion Government.
In 1886 he paid a short visit to England and also spent some months in China. For the next two years he was in the United States engaged on the survey, location, and construction of the St. Paul, Minnesota and Manitoba; the St. Paul and Duluth; and other railways.
In 1889 Mr. Godwin proceeded to Buenos Ayres, where he served for a time under Messrs. Hume Brothers, contractors, and was then employed by the Government of the Argentine Republic to make a survey of the Uruguay river in view of proposed canalization. He was returning to England on business connected with an island in the La Plata river which he had bought, when he was attacked by yellow fever and died at sea after a short illness on the morning of Christmas Day, 1891.
Mr. Godwin was the author of 'The Railroad Engineers’ Field- Book,' published in 1890 by Messrs. Wiley and Co., of New York, and at the time of his death had just completed another work, as yet unpublished, entitled 'Field Instruments and Field-work.'
He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution on the 13th of January, 1891.