Thomas Acquin Martin

Sir Thomas Acquin Martin (6 March 1850 – 29 April 1906), was an English industrial pioneer in India, and agent-general for Afghanistan.

He was born in Four Oaks, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, on 6 March 1850, son of Patrick William Martin, a leather manufacturer, and wife Mary Anne Bridges. He was educated at the Oratory, Edgbaston, and then entered the engineering firm of Walsh, Lovett and Co in Birmingham. He married Sarah Ann Harrby on 2 April 1869 in Birmingham.

In 1874 he went to Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) to start a branch for Walsh, Lovett and Co. Soon afterwards he founded the firm Martin & Co in Calcutta. The firm took over in 1889 the Bengal Iron and Steel Company, which inaugurated production on a capitalised basis, permitting competition with imported steel and iron.

The firm pioneered the construction in India of light railways (which it also managed), to serve as feeders of the main lines.

Many jute mills in Bengal were constructed by the firm, and up to Martin's death it had the management of the Arathoon jute mills, Calcutta. Three large collieries in Bengal, and the Hooghly Docking and Engineering Company were under its control.

The Tansa duct works, providing Bombay (present-day Mumbai) with a constant water supply from a lake forty miles distant, were engineered by the firm. The firm also engineered the water supplies of the suburbs of Calcutta, and of a large number of Indian towns, including Allahabad, Benares, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra, and Srinagar (Kashmir).

With Edward Thornton FRIBA as principal architect, the firm erected chiefs' palaces and important public buildings in various parts of India, particularly in Calcutta where they were contractors for the Victoria Memorial Hall.

Early in 1887 Martin was appointed agent by Abdur Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan; he sent to Kabul Thomas Salter Pyne. Pyne, on behalf of Martin's firm, built for the Emir an arsenal, a mint, and various factories and workshops, subsequently introducing, as state monopolies, a number of modern industries.

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