Thomas Elcoat Laing
Thomas Elcoat Laing (1848-1899)
1900 Obituary [1]
THOMAS ELCOAT LAING, born on the 14th September, 1848, passed through the engineering course at Owens College, Manchester, and subsequently served articles for three years with Edgar Gilkes, Engineer, of Middlesbrough.
In 1870 he entered the service of the Middlesbrough Corporation as Assistant Engineer on municipal works.
Between 1873 and 1878 he carried out for a company of Belgian concessionaires large waterworks at Hof, in Bavaria, and at Schwarzenberg, in Saxony, on the completion of which he was elected a Member of the German Association of Engineers and Architects.
He returned to England in 1878, entered the service of the Wolverhampton Corporation as Assistant Engineer, and subsequently obtained a similar appointment under the Salford Corporation, where he was engaged on the carrying out of extensive sewerage works, main drainage, bridge and tramways, under the late Mr. Arthur Jacob.
In 1882 he entered the service of the Leicester Corporation as Assistant Engineer for the extensive flood prevention and navigation works at Leicester, on which he was engaged under the late Mr. Joseph Gordon. He was also employed on the sewerage and main drainage works of that town.
From July, 1892, until the end of 1894 Mr. Laing acted as a District Surveyor under the Corporation of Sheffield.
Early in 1894 he proceeded to West Africa to take up the appointment of Director of Public Works for Sierra Leone, which post he held for nearly five years.
Mr. Laing died of fever at Freetown on the 19th November, 1899.
He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution on the 20th May, 1890.