Peter W. Barlow
| Peter William Barlow | |
|---|---|
| Born |
1 February 1809 Woolwich, London |
| Died | 19 May 1885 (aged 76) London |
| Spouse(s) | Bethia Crawford Caffin |
| Children | two daughters, one son |
| Parent(s) | Peter Barlow and ? |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Civil Engineer |
| Institutions | Institution of Civil Engineers |
| Projects |
Lambeth Bridge Tower Subway |
| Significant design | Barlow-Greathead tunnelling shield |
Peter William Barlow (1 February 1809 – 19 May 1885) was an English civil engineer, particularly associated with railways, bridges (he designed the first Lambeth Bridge, a crossing of the River Thames in London), the design of tunnels and the development of tunnelling techniques. In 1864 he patented a design for a cylindrical tunnelling shield, later developed further by his pupil James Greathead in the construction of a tunnel under the Thames.
He was born at Woolwich, the son of an engineer and mathematician, professor Peter Barlow of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was privately educated, winning a Royal Society of Arts medal in 1824 for his drawing of a transit theodolite; he then became a pupil of civil engineer Henry Robinson Palmer, a founder member of the Institution of Civil Engineers – of which Barlow became an Associate Member in 1826. Under Palmer, Barlow worked on the Liverpool and Birmingham Canal and the new London Docks.
Barlow contributed to the ICE journal, writing on The strain to which lock gates are subjected in 1836. He also contributed learned papers to the Royal Society.
His brother William Henry Barlow was a noted 19th-century railway engineer.
From 1836 Peter Barlow was the resident civil engineer under Sir William Cubitt on parts of the South Eastern Railway London to Dover line, before taking responsibility for the whole line in 1840, and later becoming Engineer-in-Chief. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in November 1845 as someone who was "Distinguished for his acquaintance with the science of Mathematics as applied to Engineering Subjects". From the 1850s to the 1870s, Barlow was engineer-in-chief to the Newtown and Oswestry,Londonderry and Enniskillen and Londonderry and Coleraine railways; in the mid-1860s he was also consultant engineer to the Finn Valley Railway.
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