Frederick Ewart Robertson

Frederick Ewart Robertson (1847-1912)

• 1868, Public Works Department of India, served one year in Bengal in the Roads and Buildings branch, and then entered the State Railways Department .

Railway Achievements in India

• 1869-70, employed on the survey for the Indus Valley State Railway (IVSR)
• 1870, Engineer-in-Charge of the construction division in Upper Sind until the IVSR was opened for traffic in 1877.
• 1879, In-charge of a sub-division of the IVSR. He established the railway ferry over the Indus at Sukkur, a description of which appeared in the Technical Section Papers of the State Railways Department. The ferry was successfully worked until it was replaced by the Lansdowne Bridge.
• 1887 Lansdowne Bridge, of the cantilever type, with a 820 feet(248M) span, involved his design of novel and suitable plant for its erection. The whole of the work was successfully carried out by him, and the bridge was opened in 1889. Mr. Robertson’s services were acknowledged in a special Gazette notification, and he was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire.
• 1889, He was subsequently appointed Engineer-in-Chief of the IVSR, which included the Khojak Junction under construction;
• 1889, East Indian Railway Chief Engineer, on retirement of Charles Henry Denham and at one time acted as Agent. He resigned this position for family reasons in 1897.
• 1898, joined Sir Alexander Meadows Rendel, as Consulting Engineers in Westminster, London; and for 14 years, up to the date of his death in 1912, he was an active partner in that firm. He was resposible for the designs of the Lansdowne Bridge; the Jubilee Bridge over the Hooghly; and the designs for the steelwork of perhaps the most difficult bridge yet undertaken, at Sara over the Lower Ganges, which when opened in 1915 became the Hardinge Bridge.