George W. Buck
Encyclopedia
George Watson Buck was Engineer of the Montgomeryshire Canal in the early 19th Century, and was responsible for the unique lock paddle
Lock (water transport)
A lock is a device for raising and lowering boats between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water level can be varied; whereas in a caisson lock, a boat lift, or on a canal inclined plane, it is...

 design.

He was later resident engineer during the building of the London and Birmingham Railway
London and Birmingham Railway
The London and Birmingham Railway was an early railway company in the United Kingdom from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway ....

, and later designed Stockport Viaduct
Stockport Viaduct
The Stockport Viaduct is a large brick-built bridge which carries a main railway line across the valley of the River Mersey, inStockport, Greater Manchester .Designed by George Watson Buck and completed in 1840, the viaduct is high...

 on the Manchester and Birmingham Railway
Manchester and Birmingham Railway
The Manchester and Birmingham Railway was built between Manchester and Crewe and opened in stages from 1840. Between Crewe and Birmingham, trains were worked by the Grand Junction Railway...

.

He was born at Stoke Holy Cross
Stoke Holy Cross
Stoke Holy Cross is a village in South Norfolk which lies approximately 4 miles south of Norwich.-Geography:It sits on the River Tas. It covers an area of and had a population of 1,568 in 674 households as of the 2001 census....

, near Norwich
Norwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

, on 1 April 1789. He worked for a wholesaler at Tower Hill
Tower Hill
Tower Hill is an elevated spot northwest of the Tower of London, just outside the limits of the City of London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Formerly it was part of the Tower Liberty under the direct administrative control of Tower...

, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 before obtaining a position at Old Ford Pumping Station. He later worked as resident engineer on the Farlington
Farlington, Portsmouth
Farlington is a district of Portsmouth. It is located in the north east of the city and is not actually on Portsea Island. Farlington was incorporated into the city in 1932 and now forms a continuous development with Cosham and Drayton....

 water supply scheme near Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

.

He was appointed Engineer of the Eastern Branch of the Montgomeryshire Canal in 1819. He was responsible for the rebuilding of various bridges, the replacement of lock gates in cast iron, and rebuilding of the Brithdir Aqueduct. In 1821 he designed the waterwheel used to pump water from the River Severn
River Severn
The River Severn is the longest river in Great Britain, at about , but the second longest on the British Isles, behind the River Shannon. It rises at an altitude of on Plynlimon, Ceredigion near Llanidloes, Powys, in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales...

 at Newtown to the top pound of the Western Branch. He introduced the distinctive lock paddle gear to the Eastern Branch in 1831. In 1832 he was appointed Engineer of the Western Branch.

In December 1833 Buck left canal employment to join Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson
Robert Stephenson FRS was an English civil engineer. He was the only son of George Stephenson, the famed locomotive builder and railway engineer; many of the achievements popularly credited to his father were actually the joint efforts of father and son.-Early life :He was born on the 16th of...

's team building the London and Birmingham Railway
London and Birmingham Railway
The London and Birmingham Railway was an early railway company in the United Kingdom from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway ....

. In 1838 he became solely responsible for building the railway from Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 to Crewe
Crewe
Crewe is a railway town within the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census the urban area had a population of 67,683...

. In 1839 he published a work entitled A Practical and Theoretical Essay on Oblique Bridges in which he was the first to apply trigonometry
Trigonometry
Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics that studies triangles and the relationships between their sides and the angles between these sides. Trigonometry defines the trigonometric functions, which describe those relationships and have applicability to cyclical phenomena, such as waves...

 to the design of the skew arch
Skew arch
A skew arch is a method of construction that enables an arch bridge to span an obstacle at some angle other than a right angle. This results in the faces of the arch not being perpendicular to its abutments and its plan view being a parallelogram, rather than the rectangle that is the plan view of...

 railway bridge.

In the mid 1840s he retired due to ill health.

Today a boat is named after him which operates from Llanymynech
Llanymynech
Llanymynech is a village straddling the border between Montgomeryshire/Powys, Wales and Shropshire, England about 9 miles north of the Welsh town of Welshpool. The name is Welsh for "Church of the Monks"....

Wharf on the Montgomery Canal.

Further reading

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