Francis Whishaw

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Francis Whishaw (13 July 1804 – October 1856) was an English civil engineer. He was known for his role in the

Society of Arts
, and as a writer on railways. Later in life he was a promoter of telegraph companies.

Life

Francis Whishaw was born 13 July 1804, the son of John Whishaw, a solicitor.

George Parker Bidder.[1][3][4]

Francis Whishaw (1828), St Anne's Limehouse

In the late 1830s Whishaw was promoting his version of the

Telford medal for his History report on Westminster Bridge; it was a manuscript, of which an abstract was published in the Proceedings of the institute.[6][7]

Whishaw was recruited by

Prince Albert, president of the Society, Whishaw pulled together a committee including Wentworth Dilke, Francis Fuller, and Robert Stephenson.[12] A second exhibition of 1845 with an enlarged committee was also largely disregarded by manufacturers and the public.[13] In 1847 a more substantial exhibition was held.[14]

Whishaw's March 1845 demonstration of

British Association.[17][18]

Whishaw gave an account of the

electric telegraph in the London Artisan in 1849.[19] He was one of those exhibiting gutta percha products at the Great Exhibition in 1851, with a dozen other inventions.[20][21]

In the years before his death Whishaw had suffered from reduced health,[1] and had complained of pains in the head, and experience occasional brief memory loss.[22] In October 1856 Francis Whishaw was found late evening by a policeman in a partially conscious state, sometime after leaving his residence to attend church in Kentish Town. He was taken to a doctor, and then to the a workhouse infirmary, where he died.[a] The post mortem gave a verdict of natural apoplexy.[22]

As a civil and mechanical engineer Francis Whishaw was a man of sound attainments and great acquirements, of a highly original and suggestive train of mind, fostered by careful study and experiment, and tempered by sound judgment [..] In personal character [he] was esteemed for great parts and probity, but his integrity was so unflinching that it earned him many enemies. Independent in his bearing, confident in his integrity, he was a fierce foe to quackery in science and quacks in morals; and as this was marked by some asperity of character, the quacks at length got the better of him [...] it was easy to represent that Whishaw was uncertain in his temper, unstable in his disposition, and at length that he was an impracticable man; though he was undoubtedly a good servant to those who employed him, a good master to those under him, and a good colleague to those who acted with him.

— The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal (1856)

Works

  • Whishaw, Francis (1837). Analysis of Railways: Consisting of a Series of Reports of the Twelve Hundred Miles of Projected Railways in England and Wales ... John Weale.
  • Whishaw, Francis (1842) [1840]. The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland practically described and illustrated (2nd ed.).
  • Whishaw, Francis (1840). Report of the Railway Communication with Scotland: [...] report on the proposed Lancaster and Penrith railway.
  • Whishaw, F. (1838). "History and Construction of Westminster Bridge, Accompanied with Detailed Drawings". Minutes of the Proceedings. 1 (1838). Institute of Civil Engineers: 44–46.
    doi:10.1680/imotp.1838.24813
    .
  • Whishaw, F. (1839). "Observations on the Present Mode of Executing Railways, with Suggestions for a More Economical, Yet Equally Efficient System, of Both Executing and Working Them". Minutes of the Proceedings. 1 (1839). Institute of Civil Engineers: 53.
    doi:10.1680/imotp.1839.24848
    .

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ The date of death is given in Minutes of Proceedings (1857), p. 150) as 6 October, whereas Laxton (1856, p. 365) gives 5 October.

References

  1. ^ a b c Minutes of Proceedings 1857
  2. ^ British Museum; British Museum. Dept. of Manuscripts (1837). Additions made to the collections in the British Museum in the year MDCCCXXXIV. British Museum. p. 394.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7546-3679-3
    .
  4. ^ Laxton, William (1849). The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal. Vol. 12. p. 207.
  5. ^ The Railway Magazine. July 1839. p. 9.
  6. ^ Laxton, William (1839). The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal. Vol. 2. Published for the proprietor. p. 74.
  7. ^ "Labelye, Charles" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  8. ISBN 978-0-8264-7841-2
    .
  9. ^ Wood, Henry Trueman (1913). A History of the Royal Society of Arts. John Murray, London. p. 348.
  10. ISBN 978-0-300-08007-0
    .
  11. ISBN 978-90-6450-383-2
    .
  12. ISBN 978-0-00-717295-5
    .
  13. ^ Berlyn, Peter (1851). A popular narrative of the origin, history, progress, and prospects of the great industrial exhibition, 1851. James Gilbert. p. 23.
  14. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/274. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  15. ^ Goodale 1950, p. 8.
  16. ^ Dodd, George (1852). The Curiosities of Industry and the Applied Sciences. George Routledge & Co. Chap. IV; p.16.
  17. ^ Whishaw (1848). Carson, Joseph; Proctor, William (eds.). "Art. LXVII on the various applications of gutta percha". American Journal of Pharmacy. 14: 318–321.
  18. ^ Dalton, William (1849). Gutta percha, its discovery, history, remarkable properties, vast utility. J.O. Clarke. p. 10.
  19. ^ Turnbull, Laurence (1853). The electro magnetic telegraph: with an historical account of its rise, progress, and present condition ... A. Hart. p. 85.
  20. ISBN 978-0-85296-895-6
    .
  21. ^ 1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class X.: Francis Whishaw. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  22. ^ a b Laxton 1856, p. 365.

Sources

External links

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