Henry Deane (engineer)

Henry Deane (26 March 1847 – 12 March 1924) was an Australian engineer, responsible for electrifying the Sydney tramway system and for building the Newnes and the Trans-Australian Railways.

Biography

Deane was born at Clapham Common, England, the son of Henry Deane, a chemist and fellow of the Linnean Society of London, and his wife Jemima, née Elliott. Deane was schooled in England, matriculating in 1862, then studied at Queen's College, Galway (Now the National University of Ireland, Galway), where graduated B.A. in 1865 and M.A. in 1882 with honours in mathematics and natural science. Deane also studied engineering for two years and obtained his diploma at King's College London as an occasional student.cite web |url=http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080279b.htm |title=Deane, Henry (1847 - 1924) |accessdate=2008-09-13 |author=J. D. Walker |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8 |publisher=MUP |year=1981 |pages=pp 259-260]

After two years in the office of Sir John Fowler at London, Deane was engaged by Waring Bros from 1869 to 1871 on the Hungarian railways, and from 1871 to 1873 was chief technical assistant at the ship-building works of the Danube Steam Navigation Company, Altofen, Hungary. From 1873 to 1879 Deane was in England and on sugar-works in the Philippines. Deane left for Australia at the end of 1879, arriving in Sydney in January 1880 on the "Kent"; he joined the New South Wales railways department as a surveyor, and rose to be engineer-in-chief in 1890. In 1894 he made a world trip studying light railways and tramway systems, and after his return took a leading part in inaugurating the Sydney electric tramway system.

Second career

Deane retired from the New South Wales railways in May 1906, but after two years of private practice he was appointed consulting engineer to the Commonwealth in connexion with the survey of the transcontinental|railway between Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie. At the beginning of 1912 he became engineer-in-chief and supervised the construction of a large portion of this railway.

He retired again in February 1914 and practised as a consulting engineer at Melbourne.

Family

Deane died in Melbourne on 12 March 1924, and was buried with Anglican rites in Brighton cemetery. He was twice married and left a widow, three sons and three daughters. He was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of several learned societies. He was twice president of the Royal Society of New South Wales and for two years was president of the Linnean Society of New South Wales.

In conjunction with Joseph Maiden, Deane published a series of papers on native timbers, and wrote frequently on forestry and botanical subjects. "Eucalyptus deanei" was named after him. His work on tertiary fossil botany was particularly valuable, and gave him a high reputation among the geologists of his time.

References

*Dictionary of Australian Biography|First=Henry|Last=Deane|Link=