Angus Campbell
Angus Campbell (1831-1917)
Superintendent of the Government Foundry and Workshops, Roorkee, India.
1918 Obituary [1]
ANGUS CAMPBELL was born in Liverpool on 10th May 1831.
His early life was spent in Scotland, after which he worked in Woolwich Arsenal, where he held the position of master founder during the Crimean War, and superintended the manufacture of shells and other munitions.
In 1857 he went to India under covenant with the East India Company as assistant superintendent of the Kumaon Iron Works.
On the closing of the works owing to the difficulty of obtaining fuel, he entered the Public Works Department as assistant superintendent of the Canal Foundry and Workshops at Roorkee, and became Superintendent in 1864. From that time until his retirement, under the age rule, in 1886, he was entrusted with the designing and carrying out of many important and successful engineering projects in Northern India. In those days private enterprise scarcely existed in India, and the workshops at Roorkee met the demand of Government and private individuals and companies for a great variety of manufactured articles.
Among Mr. Campbell's inventions was a heliograph which has since then been the only one used by the Army in India. Another invention was a machine for measuring the links in survey chains. After retiring from the service of the Government he resided in Mussoorie and Dehra Dun, U.P., and was engaged on many engineering projects until within a year or two before his death. He designed and carried out schemes for supplying Dehra Dun and the hill station of Mussoorie with water, and prepared a system of sanitation for the latter place.
His death took place at Mussoorie on 12th August 1917, at the age of eighty-six.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1877.