Bradford Leslie

Bradford Leslie Sir KCIE (1831-1926) was an English civil engineer who specialised in bridges and was a pupil of Isambard Kingdom Brunel who was a consulting engineer for the Eastern Bengal Railway. Leslie's most notable achievement was the construction of the Jubilee Bridge that opened in 1887 for the East India Railway Company.

Railway Achievements in India

• Eastern Bengal Railway(EBR), 1865 Leslie was sent to India as engineer in charge of bridges and viaducts. He supervised the building of the Eschamutter and Koormar river bridge - see EBR Bridges 1869-70 for details, photograhs etc. He became Agent and Chief Engineer of EBR in 1876.
• East India Railway Company(EIR) His greatest achievement in India was the Hooghly Bridge (known as the Jubilee Bridge when it opened in 1887 for which he was appointed a Knight Commander Order of the Indian Empire. He also designed an unusual floating pontoon bridge which straddled the Hooghly in Calcutta for 70 years and the Gorai River Railway Bridge near Kushtia in Bangladesh.
  • 1879, 10 Feb ‘Railway Conference’, Calcutta. Delegate as Agent and Chief Engineer EIR
  • 1880 , 6-13 Jan ‘Railway Conference’, Calcutta. Delegate as Agent and Chief Engineer EIR .
• Southern Punjab Railway(SPR), 1895. The Company was formed with Leslie as Chairman. Under contract with the Secretary of State for India, Leslie and his partners formed the company to build a broad gauge(BG) Railway from Delhi to Samasata 400 miles to the west.