Public Works Department

Also includes Engineers generally.

The Public Works Department was a government department that was responsible for buildings, roads, irrigation and railways.

Public Works in India, such as the construction of roads, water tank, etc. was originally conducted by the military. This started with the Pioneers and then by the Public Works Department of the Town Major's List (Bengal & Bombay) or the Effective Supernumeraries (Madras). Much of the responsibility for public works was then passed over to a special section of the Indian Civil Service in the mid-19th century. Later, the military once more took responsibility for much of the public works.

• The Military Works branch detatched from the PWD and became the Military Works Service under the Indian Army in 1899.

• Europeans employed on State Railways were usually on the strength of the PWD and therefore a civil servant (eligible for pension etc). NB in this context, if your ancestor turns up on a railway in India and the record contains "PWD" in the note or description, then this does not refer to "Permanent Way Department" (as it would in a UK context) but to the Public Works Department!

Departmental Structure

The PWD around 1870 was headed by the PWD Secretary to the Government of India – a consultant engineer and advisor to Viceroy and Council. Deputy Secretaries were responsible for the Departments of :

• Irrigation
• Railways and
• Military Engineering

Local Government had its PWD Secretary who was

• Advisor to Lieutenant Governor or Chief Commissioner
• Chief Engineer for his Province

Under him, Superintending Engineers were responsible for District, or a major project ie: a railway line.

Executive Engineers reported to the Superintending Engineers and were project managers for the single project. they would control:

• 2 or 3 Assistant Engineers,
• 5 or 6 European Overseer (NCO’s)
• 8/10 Native overseers and
• Office staff

Training

• School of Military Engineering at Chatham, UK (1812) Colonial expansion resulted in a centralised establishment to teach civil engineering and architecture to officers destined for the colonies.
• The Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper’s Hill, UK (1871) specifically trained Civil Engineers heading out to India to join the PWD.
• Thomason College, Roorkee. From around 1870 Assistant Engineers are drawn from civilian staff or the Royal Engineers, Artillery or line Officers were trained at Roorkee. New Engineering Officers to India spent a year at Roorkee serving with the Bengal Sappers and Miners, to acclimatise and become linguistically fluent.

Thomason College was a small training college, with a staff of five. It offered a two year Engineering Course for potential Assistant Engineers.

Graduates from Cooper’s Hill joined the imperial service, while those from Thomason College were destined for provincial service. Those specialising in Military Building including architecture would be based in a town, while those choosing the Irrigation, or the Railways would find themselves in a remote rural hinterland. Some students became members of the Survey Dept.

Those students with a particular interest in architecture were encouraged to specialise, as there was a great demand for architects.

At the time Indian Universities were formed (1860 onwards) they took inspiation from home, where Universities taught Engineering (full-time architectural education did not begin in England until 1892 at King’s College) so they copied the existing educational model.

English trained PWD engineers endorsed the training of Indian engineers at local colleges. Architectural critics (echoing the UK's Design Reform Movement suggested that engineers had insufficient design education - allowing them to copy European styles, but not innovate designs for Indian conditions. This was voiced in the 1868 Bombay Builder magazine - arguing that it was only in India that engineers were employed to design landmark buildings (Law Courts, Government buildings etc).

Arguably, Engineers adversely stagnated the training of Indian technicians, and this continued until Indian Universities, captivated with Modernism, offered Architecture Courses - in the run up to Independence. A result was several generations had not studied India’s rich architectural history. Accepting this the JJ School of Art Bombay looked forward, visioning the use of concrete a new material that would in time house India's masses.

As well as Thomason College, Roorkee housed:

• Headquarters for the Bengal Sappers and Royal Engineers in Bengal
• Foundry
• Quarter Master Course - seven month course

FIBIS Resources

• Hugh Wilding, "M.I.C.E. in the branches: a family history work in progress" FIBIS Journal No 23 (Spring 2010), pages 28-38. M.I.C.E. stands for Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. An account of researching a civil engineer in the Public Works Department. For details of how to access this article, see FIBIS Journals
• Hugh Wilding, "Building the Beas Bridge" FIBIS Journal No 24 (Autumn 2010), pages 50-53. For details of how to access this article, see FIBIS Journals.

Records

• The following India Office Records held at the British Library may help researchers:
  • PWD Civil Lists 1861-1940 IOR: V/13/195-226
  • Once the whereabouts of your ancestor in a given year has been established, a useful next step is the IOR V/12 Service Histories.There are an alarming 434 volumes of Service Histories, and as well as whole sequences of volumes for the 3 Presidencies, there are more sequences for India, Assam, Bihar & Orissa, United Provinces, Punjab, North West Frontier, Central Provinces, Burma and Hyderabad! The earliest date from 1879 and the latest 1948, though dates for particular regions vary. The later you can get in your ancestor’s career the better, as the information appears to be cumulative.
  • Records of Staff and Students of Cooper's Hill Engineering College 1871-1906 are held in series IOR/L/PWD/8 with those of students also on FIBIS database. "Engineering a career in India" 20 May 2014 British Library untold lives blog.
• The publication Indian Engineering is held by the British Library. For comments about this publication, refer the online editions, below. The British Library catalogue shows the following issues are held: "1910-1952; Vol.47 - vol.130, no.1. ; Deficient: vol.64, no.17 - vol.67, 1918-20"
• From c June 2013 the following records have been availble on the pay site Ancestry.com
  • UK, Civil Engineer Records, 1820-1930 source UK: Institution of Civil Engineers.
  • UK, Civil Engineer Photographs, 1829-1923 source UK: Institution of Civil Engineers.
  • UK, Mechanical Engineer Records, 1870-1930 souce UK: Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
• The ICE Virtual Library (Institution of Civil Engineers) may be searched for an obituary of an ICE member, which often gives details of a person's work history. This India List post suggests trying the Archivist at the ICE.
• See also L/F/10 Records of Service 1702-1928

Related Articles

• Civil Engineers
• Royal Indian Engineering College
• Chappar Rift

Individuals

• Incidents and Anecdotes in the Life of Lieut.-General Sprot Volume 1 1906 Archive.org. The author spent 12 years in India, from 1849, page 13, with the British Army 83rd Regiment of Foot but much of this time was attached to the Public Works Department, Bombay Presidency.
• Frederick Lewis Dibblee. Railway engineer. Worked in India 1864-1888
• Village, Town, and Jungle life in India 
by A.C. Newcombe 1905 Archive.org He was in India 1874-1902 as a Civil Engineer in the Public Works Department
• Tom Salkield , was Engineer to the Municipality of Delhi 1905-1922. He was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind decoration for public service in India .He was also in the Punjab Volunteer Rifles for 16 years. There are further details in his obituary ICE Proceedings Volume 16, Issue 3, 01 July 1960 , pages 348 –349. Details of Tom Salkield Delhi Photograph Album 1905-1916 Janus (Archives in Cambridge)
• Charles Spedding, Engineer, of the road making contacting company Spedding & Co, making the road from Gilgit to Kashmir c 1891, and W.P. Appleford, an engineer employee - refer Punjab Rifles
• Colonel Frederick Charles Temple, C.I.E., C.B.E., V.D., 1879-1957 Obituary ICE Virtual Library. He came to India c 1905 and served in various capacities with the Military Works Services and with the Public Works Department. In 1919 he was appointed Chief Town Engineer and later Administrator, for the Tata Iron and Steel Co., being responsible for the design and building of the town of Jamshedpur. Later, he became Relief Engineer and Supply Officer to the Government of Bihar and Orissa after the January 1934 earthquake and was responsible for the reconstruction of the towns, roads and bridges destroyed.

External links

• Developments in Public Works, British India from History of India, Indianetzone
• "How our British rulers 'legalised' bribery" The Hindu.com
• Heritage tag for 110-yr-old power project by Majid Jahangir. The second oldest power project, the Mohura [Mohra] Power House located in the Uri area of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, was commissioned in 1902. This article also mentions the first power house set up in 1901 by the Maharaja of Mysore. The Tribune Saturday, September 1, 2012, Chandigarh

Historical books online

• Also see Corps of Royal Engineers‎-Historical books online
• Reports Correspondence and Original Papers on Various Professional Subjects Connected with the Duties of the Corps of Engineers Madras Presidency Volume 1 1839 by Captain J. T. Smith, F. R. S. Google Books
• Selections from the Records of the Government of India (Public Works Department). No. XIII: Progress Reports of the Public Works Department, for the Year 1854-55 (Google Books)
• "Public Works in the Bengal Presidency" by Major General George Borlase Tremenheere, of the Bengal Engineers from Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain) 1858 page 483 (Google Books). He also gave evidence in 1858 to a House Of Commons Select Committe on Colonisation and Settlement in India, see Parliamentary Papers 1858 (Google Books).
• Index Scholasticus: Sons and daughters. A guide to parents in the choice of educational institutions, preparatory to professional or other occupation of their children by R. Kemp Philp 1872 Archive.org includes
  • Entrance requirements c 1872 Civil Engineering Service in India page 162
  • Entrance requirements c 1872, Indian Civil Engineering College, Cooper’s Hill, Surrey page 164
  • The Engineer Establishment of the Indian Public Works Department, page 166
• Indian Engineering (Archive.org). This publication, "An Illustrated Weekly Journal" appears to covers all aspects of engineering- railways, buildings, bridges etc. It also has sections where it mentions people, their jobs, their deaths, promotions etc.
  • Volume 1 January-June 1887, General Index,Poem-Died On The Line (page 75); Volume 2 July-December 1887 , General Index
  • Volume 3 January-June 1888, General Index; Volume 4 July-December 1888 (lacks General Index)
• Professional papers on Indian engineering

Volume 1 1863-64, Volume 2 1865, Volume 3 1866, Volume 4 1867, Volume 5 1868, Volume 6 1869 Google Books.

Volume 7, 1870 is available to read online on the Digital Library of India website. Preface computer page 3 Index commences computer page 10 (first page of index missing)

Second Series Volume 2, 1873, Second Series Volume 5, 1876, Second Series Volume 7, 1878, Second Series Volume 8, 1879 Archive.org

Volume 9, 1880 is available to download as a pdf from Rare Books on Sindh (scroll down)

• India List & India Office List 1905 Your railway ancestor may be here.
• India and Indian Engineering by J G Medley 1873 ex Principal of Tomason College, Rorkee. Good description of the life and work of engineers in India. Archive.org
• Ways and works in India being an account of the public works in that country from the earliest times up to the present day by G. W. Macgeorge 1894 Archive.org
• Electricity in India , being a history of the Tata Hydro- Electric Project with notes on the Mill Industry in Bombay, edited by SM Rutnagur 1912 Archive.org. Contains a List of Engineers
• The Bombay Builder: an illustrated journal of engineering architecture, science & art Volume 1 1865 Google Books
• Bhagirathi - The Institute Repository of IIT Roorkee in the Archives collection of the Central Library has books and documents relating to Rourkee and Engineering which may be downloaded as pdfs. As an example searching for Roorkee gives the following publications
• Proceedings of the Punjab Engineering Congress from 1913 are available on the website of Pakistan Engineering Congress which was established in 1912 as the Punjab Engineering Congress, located under Publications/Proceedings.

Current Books

• The Indian Metropolis, Evenson, Norma. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1989.