George Robert Jebb
George Robert Jebb (1838-1927) Engineer to the Birmingham Canal Navigation, Birmingham; and The Laurels, Shrewsbury.
1927 Obituary [1]
GEORGE ROBERT JEBB, former Vice-President, who died at his residence, Bucklebury Common, near Reading, on the 16th February, 1927, after a brief illness, was the son of John Jebb, and was born at Baschurch, Shropshire, on the 30th November, 1838. He served his pupilage, from 1854 to 1858, under Mr. Alexander Mackintosh, M. Inst. C.E., who was then in charge of the Chester lines of the Great Western Railway.
In 1859 he was appointed Resident Engineer on the constructional works of the Bryn-Owen Railway, and Wrexham and Minera Railway, and from 1862 to 1869 he was engaged in a similar capacity on the Wrexham and Minera Railway extension, the Mold and Treiddyn, and other railways.
In 1863 he went to Galicia and planned the course of 20 miles of the Lemberg-Czernowitz railway. He was appointed Chief Engineer of the Shropshire Union Railways and Canals Company in 1869, which position he retained until 1919 ; and from 1875 to 1912 he was also Chief Engineer of the Birmingham Canal Company.
On his retirement from that position he was appointed a member of the Committee of Management. He was responsible for the design and construction of deep-water quays, docks, and warehouses at Ellesmere Port on the river Mersey ; and for the construction, renewal and maintenance of reservoirs, weirs, pumping-plants, warehouses, branch railways, etc., in various parts of North Wales, the Potteries, and South Staffordshire, in connection with these canals. Among these works may be mentioned the substitution of modern pumping-plants on the Birmingham Canal for some of the original pumps supplied by Messrs. Boulton and Watt in the latter part of the eighteenth century or early part of the nineteenth. He was appointed a member of the Upper Mersey Navigation Commission upon its formation in 1876, and was subsequently its Chairman for 18 years. He was elected a member of The Institution in 1872, a Member of Council in 1902, and Vice-President in 1912. He resigned membership of the Council in 1915, preferring not to be nominated for the Office of President. He contributed to The Institution a Paper on "A Plea for Better Country Roads," which was read in 1906. He was admitted to fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts in 1890, to which society he contributed in 1888 a paper, "Notes on the Maintenance of Canals, with special reference to Mining."
He took a keen interest in Natural Science, particularly botany, and was an original member of the Chester Society of Nature Science. In 1912 he was President of the Smeatonian Society of Engineers