John Grundy, Sr.

John Grundy, Sr. (c.1696 – 1748) was a teacher of mathematics, a land surveyor, and later a civil engineer, who lived in Congerstone, in Leicestershire, England for the first forty years of his life, and then moved to Spalding in Lincolnshire. He was one of the first engineers to apply mathematical principles to the problems of land drainage. His son, John Grundy Jr., was also a civil engineer.

John Grundy was the son of Benjamin and Mary Grundy, and was born in the village of Bilstone, probably in 1696, but resided in the nearby village of Congerstone for most of his early life. He married Elizabeth Dalton some time before 1719, for their first son, John Grundy Jr., was baptised in the church at Congerstone on 1 July of that year. He became well known as a land surveyor, and taught mathematics to private pupils, advertising his skills in Market Bosworth, Derby and Leicester. He visited Spalding in 1731, to do some surveying for the Duke of Buccleuch, where he noticed the work being undertaken by John Perry on the River Welland. He became convinced that "mathematical and philosophical principles" could be applied to the proper drainage of low-lying ground. He joined the Gentlemen's Society at Spalding in 1731, and presented them with a map of Spalding in 1732.

Over the next six years, he made several trips to the Spalding area and Deeping Fen, to work on drainage projects, and moved his family to Spalding in 1738. He had trained his son well, for he undertook his first project at Pinchbeck sluice in 1739, and the two of them worked jointly on a survey of the River Witham from Lincoln to Boston, and plans for drainage of the fens bordering the river. He died at the age of 52, on 30 December 1748 at Spalding, but was buried in Congerstone. His son, who went on to become one of the leading English civil engineers of the eighteenth century, erected a memorial in the church building.

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