Samuel Gilbert Jones
Samuel Gilbert Jones (1842-1926)
of Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, Rangoon, British Burmah : (or care of Messrs. Wallace Brothers, 8 Austin Friars, London, E.C.)
1926 Obituary [1]
SAMUEL GILBERT JONES, a native of Gloucester, was born on 11th November 1842, and received his early education in Germany, and in an English school.
He was apprenticed in 1859 to Messrs. Rothwell and Co. of Bolton, and became the manager of their Millwright Department until 1867. His duties during these early years carried him into Germany, Hanover, Saxony and Naples, and during this time his firm was constructing locomotives for the Bristol and Exeter and Cardigan and Carmarthen Railways. Mr. Jones was also responsible for the fitting out of the Armstrong Gun Factory Department at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, and the Abbey Mills Pumping Station for the Metropolitan Board of Works, London.
In 1867 he was engaged by Messrs. Wallace Bros. of London to order machinery for a cotton weaving plant for the King of Burma, in Mandalay, which he erected two years later. He remained in Burma during the rest of his professional career, in association with the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation, founded by Wallace Bros., and afterwards as Engineer-Surveyor for the Port of Rangoon. Mr. Jones designed a furnace for the burning of sawdust, which led to the burning of paddy husk instead of coal in the rice mills of the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation, and as manager of their Forest Department was instrumental in bringing about the annexation of Upper Burma. He also designed a great deal of the machinery used by the Corporation and got out the first steam launch on the Rangoon River, afterwards constructing many light- draught stern-wheel steam launches.
In 1888 he retired and lived at his country residence at Steanbridge House, near Stroud, until his death on 26th July 1926.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1882.