Thomas David Little (1842-1900)
1900 Obituary [1]
THOMAS DAVID LITTLE was born at Reading on the 19th December, 1842, and was educated at Caversham House Academy.
After serving articles to the late Mr. J. B. Clacy, County Surveyor for Berkshire, he was engaged for about eighteen months in the Engineering Department of the Great Western Railway.
In 1861, as the result of competitive examination, Mr. Little was appointed an Assistant Engineer in the Bombay Public Works Department. After being stationed successively at Poona, Ahmedabad, Surat and Panch Mahals, he was posted to Kaira in 1869 and placed in charge, as Executive Engineer, of that large district, in which, during the following eighteen years, he designed and carried out many important works, including upwards of 150 miles of metalled roads, numerous tanks and other irrigation works, and a large number of masonry and iron bridges, besides being instrumental in securing the construction of branch railways.
In 1887 he was transferred to Khandesh, and in 1889 was promoted to the rank of Superintending Engineer, 1st class.
From December, 1889, to May, 1890, and again from 1894 till his retirement in December, 1896, he served as an Additional Member of the Council of the Government of Bombay for making Laws and Regulations. Mr. Little was promoted to be Chief Engineer of the Bombay Presidency in 1801, and in 1894 became Secretary to the Government of Bombay in the Public Works Department.
In the following year he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire.
Throughout his long career in Bombay Mr. Little’s services were notably able and devoted, his judgment was always sound, and was sought by his colleagues and by the Government in many matters beyond the scope of the profession. His conspicuous services in the organization and administration of the great famine-relief works which became necessary during the last year of his service in Bombay were the subject of appreciative official notice, and he crowned a distinguished career by volunteering - in 1897 and again later - his services, without salary, for the campaign against plague and famine in which the Presidency was engaged.
On his retirement from Government service Mr. Little returned to England, where he died suddenly on the 16th May, 1900, at Chester.
Mr. Little was elected a Member of the Institution on the 5th May, 1885.
1900 Obituary [2]