Johan Viggo Sigvald Muller
Johan Viggo Sigvald Muller (1836-1904)
1905 Obituary [1]
JOHAN VIGGO SIGVALD MULLER was born at Copenhagen on the 7th June, 1836.
Sent to England at the age of 18 to receive his practical training in the engineering profession, he served a pupilage under Scott Russell, at the time the SS Great Eastern was under construction. On completing his articles, he obtained employment on the construction of the Rochester road bridge, and afterwards for a short time, on the Victoria Dock works.
In 1859 Peto, Brassey and Betts having obtained the concession for the construction of the Danish State Railways, Mr. Muller returned to Denmark as Sectional Engineer and Agent for the concessionaires, in which capacity he had charge of all the engineering works and superintended their execution.
Ten years later he accepted an engagement to proceed to Turkey for Waring Brothers, for whom he surveyed the line from Constantinople to Adrianople, and reported on other Turkish railways.
Returning to England in 1872, he built the Cornwall Mineral line, now part of the Great Western system, for Sir Morton Peto, the contractor, and in this year took up his residence at Newquay, which became his home for the remainder of his life. Mr. Muller had early become a naturalized British subject.
After completing the railway in Cornwall, he acted for several years as Manager and Surveyor to the Artisans’, Labourers’ and General Dwellings Company, superintending extensive building operations, as well as drainage and street works.
In 1882 he went to Brazil to take charge of the surveys of the Rio Grande do Sul Railway and other works for Messrs. Waring Brothers. Whilst there, he built large flour-mills and grain-elevators in Rio de Janeiro.
In 1889 he came home to enjoy a well-deserved rest, but after a year or two, was again in South America, surveying a railway from Guayaquil on the coast to Quito in the Andes, This last expedition, which involved much heavy work in the mountains, seriously impaired his health, and in 1899 he returned to England and lived in comparative retirement at Newquay until his death, which took place on the 16th December, 1904.