Thomas Walsh
Thomas Walsh (1832-1908)
1908 Obituary [1]
THOMAS WALSH was born at Blackburn on 22nd April 1832.
Having received a good general education, he was placed, at the age of fourteen, in a solicitor's office wills the object of studying for the law.
The confinement to the office not being congenial, after three years he was allowed to follow his more natural bent, and was apprenticed to the firm now known as Messrs. Yates and Thom, of Blackburn. On the completion of his term he was engaged in erecting and repairing steam-engines in various large towns of Lancashire, and in the course of his work he had frequently to effect repairs at some of the breweries, from which he soon acquired a knowledge of brewing.
Leaving the engineering profession, he commenced as a brewer and became highly successful.
In 1872 he retired from business, but continued to evince a great interest in all that pertained to the engineering profession. In municipal and political affairs he took a keen interest, and was a member of the Blackburn Town Council for six years, and then retired on account of ill-health. After a lapse of three years he again entered the Council, and gave much of his time to the service of his Borough. In 1887 he was made a Justice of the Peace for the County Borough, and later be filled the position of Chairman of the Bench.
His death took place, after a paralytic seizure, at his residence at St. Anne's-on-Sea, on 28th January 1908, in his seventy-sixth year.
He became an Associate Member of this Institution in 1901.