Thomas Bernard Collinson
Thomas Bernard Collinson (1821-1902)
1902 Obituary [1]
THOMAS BERNARD COLLINSON, Major-General R.E. retired, died at Little Haven, Ealing, on the 1st May, 1902.
A son of the Rev. John Collinson, Rector of Gateshead, he was born in 1821, and entered the corps of Royal Engineers in 1838.
After being engaged on ordnance survey work in Wales, Ireland, and the North of England, he sailed in 1843 for China, and was employed for several years on a survey of the coast.
From there he went to New Zealand to assist in constructing roads in the North Island, and took part in the movements, directed to quell the native disturbances in 1847.
On his return to England in 1850 he was employed at the Great Exhibition and subsequently at Waltham, until he was placed in command of the Royal Engineers at Aldershot in 1856.
In the following year he was sent to the Mediterranean, where he was second in command at Corfu for three years and at Malta for a similar period, with an interval of six years at Chatham as instructor in architecture.
In 1869 he was appointed to the command at Dover, where he remained till his retirement from the corps in 1873.
After living for a time at Basingstoke he held the post of architect to the Scotch Prisons Commission until he was forced to resign owing to ill health.
He then settled in Ealing.
General Collinson married in 1856 Katherine, daughter of the Rev. J. Baker, Chancellor of the Diocese of Durham.
He was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 7th May, 1861.