Alfred Coveney Priestley
Alfred Coveney Priestley (1837-1895)
1895 Obituary [1]
ALFRED COVENEY PRIESTLEY, born on the 2nd of December, 1837, was articled in 1853 to Sir Charles Fox, under whom he served for five years at the London Works, Birmingham.
He was then appointed an Assistant Engineer on the Cape Government Railways, and from 1858 to 1863 was first in charge of the construction of 16 miles of the Cape Town and Wellington line, and subsequently employed on surveys for extensions.
In 1864 Mr. Priestley, whose services were no longer required by the Colonial Government, returned to England and was engaged for six months as an Assistant Engineer on the Carnarvon and Llanberis Railway.
He was next employed from 1865 to 1871 on the construction of the Metropolitan District Railway for the contractors, Kelk, Waring Brothers and Lucas, and was then engaged for three years on the Somerset and Dorset and the East London Railways for T. and C. Walker, the contractors.
In 1874 he entered the service of Lucas Brothers, which firm became Lucas and Aird in the following year.
Mr. Priestley was for twenty years Chief Engineering Agent in the office of Messrs. Lucas and Aird, and during that period was intimately connected with the large dock, railway and other works, carried out by that firm, among others the Royal Albert Dock, the Tilbury Docks, the Alexandra Dock (Hull), and various extensions of the Midland, Chatham and Dover, and South Eastern Railways.
He died on the 16th of February, 1895, from acute bronchitis. Mr. Priestley was elected an Associate on the 1st of December, 1874, and was subsequently placed in the class of Associate Member.