William John Galwey (1833-1891)
Recorded as William St. John Galwey in the National probate index and the ICE's obituary.
1892 Obituary [1]
. . . . After a pupilage of two years with the late Samuel Power at the Great Western Docks, Plymouth, where he served as an Assistant Engineer, he went, in 1853, to Canada, on the Grand Trunk Railway, and subsequently for eighteen months on the staff of Brassey, Peto, Betts and Jackson, the contractors.
In May, 1857, Mr. Galwey entered the service of the East Indian Railway Company as a Sub-Assistant Engineer. He was to have joined the staff employed on the works of the Soane Bridge, then in charge of Mr. Samuel Power, under whom he had worked at Plymouth, but the Indian mutiny having broken out, he could not proceed up country, and so remained for the rest of that year in the office of the Chief Engineer, the late George Turnbull, in Calcutta.
He was then posted to the Monghyr district, and employed in surveying the site on which he afterwards set out, and commenced the construction of, the Jamalpur locomotive workshops and offices, station, and dwellings for the European and native staff. This locomotive station has been designated the 'Crewe' of India, from which some idea may be formed of its magnitude. He was promoted to Resident Engineer in June, 1862, whilst in charge of the works of this station.
In 1863, Mr. Galwey visited England on leave, returning at the end of the year, when hew as appointed to take charge of a portion of the survey of the proposed Chord line, which was to shorten the distance between Calcutta and the North West Provinces by about 70 miles. After the completion of the survey hew as attached to the office of the then Chief Engineer, Mr. Samuel Power, who was preparing plans for a railway bridge across the River Hooghly and for a terminus in Calcutta, in place of that in Howrah. In connection with this scheme, Mr. Galwey accompanied Mr. Power to England early in 1865. The project, although approved, was not carried out.
Whilst in England, however, he was employed under Mr. Power, in preparing plans and estimates for the above mentioned Chord line, 228 miles in length. On these plans and estimates the contract was let to Messrs. Brassey, Wythes and Perry, and the work was commenced in 1866, Mr. Galwey, who had returned to India in the previous October, being placed in charge of the Junction district, which . . . [more]
1891 Obituary [2]
A CABLE message from Siam conveys, we regret to say, the intelligence of the death, in his sixtieth year, of Mr. William John Galwey, member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, while employed as chief of the engineering staff in the survey of the projected railway from Bangkok to Chiengmai and Chiengsin, on the South-West Frontier of the Chinese Empire, a. distance of nearly 1000 miles. Mr. Galwey owed his selection for the responsible post of chief engineer of the survey to a long and unbroken record of good service. Beginning his career in 1855 as assistant engineer on the East Indian Railway, he advanced in his profession by rapid strides, until in 1872 he was offered and accepted service under Government on the State railways. The bridge over the Jhelum River , on the Punjab Northern Railway, and the Empress Bridge, the foundations of which were laid in the bed of the stream, at a depth of 100ft. below water level, were his work, and his last Government employment was that of chief engineer in charge of the Rajpootana State Railway. He had worked for two years in Siam, and having practically accomplished his mission, was looking forward to return to England , when a boat accident on the ... River put an end to his career