G. T. Clark
| George Thomas Clark | |
|---|---|
G.T. Clark by Arthur Vivian, 1854
|
|
| Born |
26 May 1809 Chelsea, London |
| Died | 31 January 1898 (aged 88) |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Civil engineering |
| Institutions | Royal College of Surgeons |
Colonel George Thomas Clark (26 May 1809 – 31 January 1898) was a British surgeon and engineer. He was particularly associated with the management of the Dowlais Iron Company. He was also an antiquary and historian of Glamorgan.
Clark was born in Chelsea, London, the eldest son of the Revd George Clark (1777–1848), chaplain to the Royal Military Asylum, Chelsea, and Clara, née Dicey. He was educated at Charterhouse School then articled to a surgeon, Sir Patrick Macgregor, in 1825 and later to George Gisborne Babington. Clark became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1832. Clark opened a practice in Bristol.
By the mid-1830s, Clark was in the employ of Isambard Kingdom Brunel as an engineer on the construction of the Great Western and Taff Vale Railways. His position was a senior one with overall responsibility for some stretches of the line and for civil structures. Involvement in major earth-moving works seems to have fed his interest in geology and archaeology and he, anonymously, authored two guidebooks on the railway, in addition to a critique of Brunel's methods, which was published in Gentleman's Magazine in 1895.
From 1843 to 1847, Clark worked on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway, surveying and planning the first passenger line in India, from Bombay to Thana which was opened in 1852. On his return to England, he published a report on the geology of the region
In 1855 Clark took control of Dowlais Ironworks. Clark's wife, was a descendant of Thomas Lewis, one of the original Dowlais Ironworks partners. The family's interests in the firm had been passed to John Josiah Guest, who after his death named Clark among the trustees. When Guest's widow Lady Charlotte Guest remarried in 1855, de facto control fell on Clark. In 1876 he was also president of the British Iron Trade Association.
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