Thomas Charles John Bain
| Thomas Charles John Bain | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
30 September 1830 Graaff-Reinet |
| Died | 29 September 1893 (aged 62) |
| Occupation | road engineer |
Thomas Charles John Bain (29 September 1830 in Graaff-Reinet – 29 September 1893) was a South African road engineer. As a prolific road building pioneer, Bain was responsible for the planning and construction of more than 900 km of roads and mountain passes, many of them still in use today, over a career spanning from 1848 until 1888. These passes through the mountain ranges between the thin coastal plain and the interior of the former Cape Colony in South Africa, played a major role in opening up the vast hinterland of South Africa.
Bain was born in 1830 at Graaff Reinet, at that stage a frontier town in the Cape Colony in Southern Africa. His father, Andrew Geddes Bain, was born in Scotland and settled in the Cape Colony in 1816 at the age of 19.
Bain and his six brothers and six sisters were educated largely at home like most settlers' children of that period. The children's education was interrupted by the outbreak of the War of the Axe in 1846, one of several frontier wars that raged during that era. Thomas served as a volunteer in the war and helped to guard women and children who sheltered in the church of the frontier town of Fort Beaufort.
He married Johanna Hermina de Smidt in 1854. They had 13 children and enjoyed a long and happy marriage. Johanna was the ninth child of Willem de Smidt, the Secretary of the Central Road Board. Georgina Bain (16 November 1860 Knysna - 6 December 1954), one of his daughters, married the Conservator of Forests, Joseph Storr Lister (1 October 1852 Cape Town - 27 February 1927, and wrote Reminiscences of Georgina Lister.
In order to cross the coastal mountain ranges of the former Cape Colony, Charles Michell (Surveyor-General, Civil Engineer and Superintendent of Works) and John Montagu (British Colonial Secretary for the Cape Colony) introduced an ambitious road building program. Their goal was achieved by the father-and-son combination of Andrew and Thomas Bain, whose civil engineering prowess effected a quantum leap in the quality and range of the road network of the 19th-century Cape Colony.
Thomas served his apprenticeship from 1848 to 1854 as his father's assistant in the capacity of Assistant Inspector of Roads. In this capacity he was involved in the construction of Michell's Pass near Ceres and Bainskloof pass near Wellington. After passing first in the Government examinations in 1854, he was promoted to Roads Inspector for the Western Province. Thomas and his father's careers as road builders continued to be intertwined until Andrew's death in 1864.
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