William Newton Bakewell builder of the Forth Bridge, lived at 41 Criffel Avenue, Telford Park, Streatham Hill . He died at the house in 1913.
Harry Bentham was engaged in the construction of the Blackwall tunnel and became the President of the Society of Engineers. At various times Harry and Lily Bentham lived in Woodbourne Ave, and Ritherdon, Huron and Veronica Roads. Engineers used the "Greathead shield" to dig the tunnel named after James Greathead who lived at "Ranvencraig" in Leigham Court Rd.
Edward Butler, motor engineer, lived at 129 Gleneldon Road. He produced an early three-wheeled automobile, the Butler Petrol Cycle, which some claim as the first British motor car. (Source Grace's Guide).
Air Vice Marshal Henry Meyrick Cave-Browne-Cave CB, DSO, DFC was the son of a senior administrative official in the Army. Born on the north side of Streatham Common at the "Burnage", he was educated at Dulwich College in London. In 1903 he became an engineering student in the Royal Navy and was promoted to Engineer sub-lieutenant in 1907. Cave was an engineering officer in the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War and senior commander in the Royal Air Force during the 1930s. At the Air Ministry in London, Cave is credited as being the person who authorised the £10,000 investment in the development of the Supermarine Spitfire in time for it to be the decisive fighter in the Battle of Britain.
Wing Commander Thomas Reginald Cave-Browne-Cave (1885-1969), lived at The "Burnage", 21 Streatham Common North. Born 11th January 1885 and attended Dulwich College. Thehe son of Sir Thomas Cave-Browne-Cave and his wife Blanche Matilda Mary Ann Milton. He was Professor of Engineering at Southampton University 1931-50. (Grace's Guide)
Cave took out a number of Patents in the late 50s early 60s. These included improvements in cooling the exhaust manifolds of internal-combustion engines, method and means for reducing the temperature and velocity of high velocity hot gaseous currents and for a noise suppressor unit for gaseous currents.
John Gordon Collier FRS (22 January 1935 – 18 November 1995), was a British chemical engineer and administrator, particularly associated with nuclear power for electricity production. He started as an apprentice at Harwell United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and rose to become its chairman. Collier was born at 84 Thrale Road, Streatham, and went to St Paul's School before joining the UKAEA as an apprentice. He studied part-time for A-levels, then went to University College London where he gained a first class degree in chemical engineering in 1956. In 1995 he took up office as the President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE).
Seymour Clarke, civil engineer, was born in Streatham on 13 October 1814 and baptised at St Leonard's Church. Clarke was the son of Frederick and Jean Nalder. Clarke was introduced to Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1834 in whose office he commenced his engineering studies. He assisted Brunel in the preparation of the designs for the Monkwearmouth Docks, the Clifton and the Hungerford Suspension Bridges, and more particularly the Great Western railway, and its various branches. All the details of the surveys, calculations, passed through Clarke's hands. He was intimately connected with the gradual extension of the Great Western railway. In 1840, he was placed in charge of the line from London to Swindon. In May 1850, Clarke became the General Manager of the Great Northern Railway. Clarke was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 5th of December 1865.
Edward Alfred Cowper, mechanical engineer, was born on 10th December 1819. He lived at "The Ferns" Leigham Avenue.
Cowper worked on the 1851 Exhibition Building, later the Crystal Palace, and designed the wrought-iron roof of the Birmingham New Street railway station. At the time of its construction it was the largest span roof in existence at 211 feet. In 1857, he invented the regenerative hot blast stove known as the Cowper Stove which greatly improved the economy of the hot blast process in the making of steel. Another invention was the modern bicycle wheel; a wire-spoke suspension wheel with india-rubber tyre, which is, in principle, the same as that used today. Cowper took part in founding the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. He was a founding member of the Institution in 1847 and in the following year was elected a member of the council. In 1880-81 he served as President. (Grace's Guide and Institution of Mechancal Engineers).
Isabel Helen Cox was born in Streatham on 19th September 1919 and the family lived in Nimrod Road. Cox was an electrical engineer and photometry expert, and a Fellow and President of the Society of Women Engineers. She attended Furzedown Primary School and Streatham Secondary School. Cox studied at Newnham College, Cambridge to read for the Natural sciences Tripos, where she specialised in physics. In 1945 Cox married John Norman Hardwich who was working as an engineer in the High Voltage Research Laboratory Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. He was an associate and a keen supporter of the Women's Engineering Society, and he shared the duties of running their home to allow Isabel to continue working at Metropolitan-Vickers. The Women's Engineering Society has awarded the Isabel Hardwich medal, named in her honour, since 1987. This is given to a member who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to the Society over a number of years and gone above and beyond the call of duty. (Grace's Guide and Image Magnificent Women).
William Cubitt (1791 – 28 October 1863) was an English engineering contractor and Conservative Party politician. He was born in Buxton in Norfolk. In the 1851 census he lived in Bedford Hill, Streatham with his wife Elizabeth Scarlett (1791) who he married on Christmas day in 1814. They had a son and 4 daughters with Eliza and Rosa recorded in the 1851 census together with 9 servants William was a partner in the building firm established by his elder brother, Thomas Cubitt, at Gray's Inn Road but circa 1827 the partnership was dissolved leaving William in sole charge of the business. William built Covent Garden completed in 1830, and Fishmongers' Hall completed in 1834. He also built the portico and the original station buildings at Euston completed in 1837. He was responsible for the reclaiming and development of Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs completed in 1850. William sat as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Andover from 1847 until 1861 and served as Lord Mayor of London in 1860–61 and was re-elected in 1861–62.
James Henry Greathead, tunnelling engineer, designed the Greathead Shield which revolutionised the building of underground railways. James Greathead lived at 'Ravenscraig', Leigham Court Road. A civil engineer renowned for his work on the London Underground railway, he is the reason that the London Underground is colloquially named "the tube". He died at Streatham on 21st October 1896, at the age of fifty-two.
Sir Gordon Risley Hearn, railway engineer and army officer was born on 7th September 1871 and died on 7th June 1953. He was resident at 52 Woodbourne Avenue, Streatham. Hearn was a Colonel in the British army in India. He served in the Royal Engineers, and for 30 years constructed Indian railways (incl. the Khyber Railway from Peshawar to the Afghan border (1919-25). Hearn participated in the Tirah Campaign, the Second Afghan war and WWI. He is the author of An Itinerary of Streatham, 1953, and The Seven Cities of Delhi.
Sir John Howard was a former resident of Christchurch Rd. Howard was born in Liverpool in 1831, the son of a prominent merchant and shipowner. A distinguished railway and water engineer, proprietor of the South London Mail and Director of the North British Railway, he was an outstanding philanthropist and ran a local charity, the Howard Charity, from a special office in Richmond Terrace, Brighton. John Howard formed a company to complete the construction of the Brighton Palace Pier. The original construction began in 1891, but in 1896 a storm struck. The Chain Pier was destroyed, and the wreckage of this destruction damaged the Palace Pier. The pier opened in May 1899.
Tony Hunt, structural engineer, built the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich and the huge biodomes at the Eden Project in Cornwall. He was born in Streatham Hill, the elder son of James Hunt, a solicitor’s clerk, and Joan (nee Cassidy) He moved away from London with his mother and brother in order to avoid the Blitz and finally settled in Farnborough.
Dr Elizabeth Killick lived with her 2 sisters Winifred and Olive and parents George Wellstead Killick and Winifred Rose Killick at 51 Woodbourne Avenue. According to her Times obituary she was a terrifying naval engineer who liked a pint and developed radar and torpedoes. Killick was born on 10 September 1924. She was a British Naval Electronics Engineer who worked on weapons systems at the MoD and became the first woman elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Killick was a pupil at Streatham and Clapham High School and St Andrew's University.
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, engineer and inventor was born on 5 February 1840 at Brockway's Mills, near Sangerville, Maine, USA. He was the elder son of Isaac Weston Maxim (1814–1883) and his wife, Harriet Boston (1815–1901), daughter of Levi Stevens of Maine. His father's family were of Huguenot and his mother's of English descent. Isaac Maxim was a farmer and wood-turner with a leaning for philosophy and a talent for invention. It is interesting, in view of Hiram Maxim's subsequent career, that his father also tinkered with the ideas of an automatic gun and a flying machine. In 1884 he opened a workshop in Hatton Garden and directed his attention to gunnery. He formed the Maxim Gun Company in the same year and prepared a design for a fully automatic gun. Then Maxim turned his attention to flying, and during the period 1889–94 produced a steam-driven test rig. He died of broncho-pneumonia and heart failure at his home, Sandhurst Lodge, High Road, Streatham, London, on 24 November 1916 and was buried at Norwood cemetery.
John Phillips, mechanical engineer lived at 70 Mount Nod Road, and before that at 31 Kingscourt Road with his wife Augusta. A mechanical engineer he patented the first rotary bacon cutter, the first boring morticing machine, a mineral water bottler, a brawn moulder, a mica cutter and a ballot register and checker. He also invented a device to automatically turn music sheets at the request of Sir A. Mann who was at the time conducting at Crystal Palace. The audience displayed more interest in this device than the music and so it stopped being used. Phillips died aged 94.
Alfred Barnes Pickard was involved in the construction of the Earl's Court Exhibition Centre built on surplus railway land.
With fellow associates at Earl's Court he became a director of Aerated Bread Company's Concessions. Pickard lived at a number of Streatham locations including 49 Kempshott, 5 Madeira Road, 18 Streatham Common South and 42 Ryecroft Road where he died on 24th November 1928 leaving an estate of £39k.
John Smith Raworth (1846-1917) was an electrical engineer of some renown. After earlier employment with R & W Hawthorne in Newcastle, Wren & Hopkinson in Manchester and in the 1870s a spell with Siemens, he became Chief Engineer with Anglo-American Brush at their London office. After Brush’s takeover of the Falcon Works in Loughborough, he became Superintending Engineer there and, from 1891, General Manager. In 1897 he became a part - time consultant on the board of Brush and from 1896 he was Technical Director on the main board of British Electric Traction (BET). He was on the board of the North Staffs Tramway company where Emile Garcke, the BET Managing Director, was chairman. Raworth also became chairman of the tramways at Devonport, where he experimented with his regenerative braking principles and at Southport where he tested his prototype demi-car. On 1 October 1904 John Smith Raworth registered his own company, Raworth Traction Patents Company Limited, to exploit his existing and future patents in respect of regenerative braking and small efficient tramcars. He lived at a number of Streatham addresses, 46 Christchurch Road, 24 Kirkstall Road and 12 Becmead Ave.
Professor Robert Henry Smith, Professor of Engineering is known for his 1890 design of a Great Tower for London. He was born in Edinburgh and was Dux Medallist in the University Engineering classes in two successive years He took the highest place among the Whitworth Scholars in his year. In 1874, at the age of twenty-two, Smith was sent to Tokyo to become the organizer and first Professor of Engineering of the Imperial University of Japan. He was selected for that post by Sir Joseph Whitworth, at the request of the Japanese Government. The engagement was for five years, and on his retirement he was decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Order of the Meiji. After a year spent in engineering work in Italy, and another as managing partner in an engineering works in South London, he was appointed organizer and first Professor of the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department of Mason College, Birmingham, now the University of Birmingham. Smith died suddenly 18th February 1916 at home , 3 Thirlmere Road, leaving £1,290. His sister Lilias Smith died on the same day in Le Cannet, Alpes Maritimes (Source Graces Guide).
Walmsley Stanley, civil engineer, lived at "The Knowle", Leigham Court Road which was on a one acre plot. It was demolished soon after the Coates' murders and suicide on the same site. Walmsley was the son of Walmsley (1796) and Isabella (1801) and the family lived in Rice Lane, Walton on the Hill, West Derby, Lancs. Walmsley Sr was also a Civil Engineer who was involved in the construction of the Leeds- Liverpool canal. Walmsley Sr was possibly related to Thomas Fletcher, Civil Engineer, who was responsible for the Yorkshire side of the canal project. Walmsley Stanley (1831) spent some time in Mauritius as Chief Engineer for railway projects and his eldest child Edith was born there in 1863. While in Mauritius Walmsley was involved with the collection of Dodo bones and was at the centre of an academic dispute relating to the Dodo.
John James Webster civil engineer, was a resident at 81 Mount Nod Road and had a worldwide reputation for bridge and pier building. Early in 1900 Webster designed Britain's first transporter bridge and built the Shepherds Bush Stadium for the 1908 Olympic Games. Among other structures he carried out were the Conway suspension bridge, Portsmouth bascule bridge, Littlehampton swing bridge and Widnes-Runcorn transporter bridge. His last work was the Warrington bridge at Bridgefoot which was one of the earliest examples of a reinforced concrete bridge. He died at home 30 October 1914 and is buried at West Norwood Cemetery.
