Person
Barrow, John (c. 1809 - 1872)
- Born
- c. 1809
- Died
- 27 August 1872
Mount Gambier, South Australia, Australia - Occupation
- Civil engineer and Surveyor
Summary
After arriving in South Australia in 1850, Barrow became the Surveyor for the Southern District of the Central Roads Board. He went to the gold diggings in Victoria in 1852-3. From 1853, he was an Assistant Engineer and Road Surveyor to the Western District of Victoria, and surveyed the main roads, the ports and harbours and supervised the construction of jetties at Portland, Port Fairy (Belfast), and Warrnambool.
He was appointed Engineer to the Portland Road District in 1856, and later the Portland Shire. In 1867, he resigned and went to Mount Gambier, where he proposed designs for a harbour at Port Macdonnell, and a scheme to supply water to Mount Gambier from its Blue Lake.
His son James John Barrow CE (1840 -1901) was also a surveyor and engineer in the south east district of South Australia.
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Details
Major Works:
* South Road, Adelaide 1850-52;
* Survey of Port Fairy, Belfast. [PP Vic. 1853/54 C.38a];
* Survey of Lady Bay, Warrnambool. [PP Vic.. 1854 C.38];
* Survey of Portland Bay [PP Vic. 1854/1855 C.12];
* Report on Improvements to Port Macdonnell, South Australia 1868;
* Report on Water Supply to Mount Gambier 1868;
* Map of Mount Gambier, 1869.
See also:
* "Report of the Select Committee ... on ... Warrnambool Harbor" RSC 1856-7 (6) [LC V&P Vic. 1856-7. S1. pp.469-498]
[He may have been granted a "Certificate of Competency as Engineer and Surveyor (CE)" under the Shires Statute and Boroughs Statute 1869 VIC, but no record has been located.]
Chronology
- 1850
- Life event - Migrated to South Australia from England
- 1850 - 1852
- Career position - Engineer, South Road, Central Road Board, South Australia
- 1852 - 1856
- Career position - Assistant Engineer, Western District, Public Works Department, Victoria
- 1856 - 1866
- Career position - Engineer, Portland Road District, Victoria
- 1866 - 1867
- Career position - Shire Engineer, Portland Shire, Victoria
- 1868 - 1872
- Career position - Engineer, Mount Gambier, South Australia
- 1872
- Life event - Buried, Lake Terrace Cemetery, Mount Gambier, South Australia
Published resources
Books
- Cumming, D. A., Some Public Works Engineers in Victoria in the Nineteenth Century (Melbourne: University of Melbourne, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 1985), 59 pp. pp.1-2. Details
- Cumming, D. A.; Moxham, G. C., They built South Australia : engineers, technicians, manufacturers, contractors and their work (Adelaide: D.A. Cumming and G.C Moxham, 1986), 241 pp. p.22. Details
Newspaper Articles
- 'Death of an Old Colonist', Border Watch (Mount Gambier, S.A.) (1872), 2, col.4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article77127583. Details
Parliamentary papers
- Barrow, John, Ports of Belfast and Warrnambool : part return to address Mr. Mark Nicholson 9th September 1853 (Melbourne: John Ferres, Government Printer, 1854), 3 pp, https://pov.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_GB/parl_paper/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:49764/one. Details
See also
- Alsop, Peter F. B. ed., Nineteenth century engineers in the colony of Victoria (Geelong North, Victoria: Author, 2002), 372 pp. Details
Ken McInnes
Created: 9 December 2021, Last modified: 20 July 2023