Benjamin Sykes
Benjamin Sykes (1839-1907)
1908 Obituary [1]
BENJAMIN SYKES, born in 1839, was articled in 1853 to Messrs. Park, Son and Garlick, consulting engineers, of Preston, and after completing his articles he became principal assistant to the firm.
In 1865 he was taken into partnership, the firm becoming Garlick, Park and Sykes, which was changed in 1884 to Garlick and Sykes.
As a consulting engineer in active practice for a period of more than 40 years, Mr. Sykes was responsible, either alone or jointly with his partner, for many important undertakings. Sea-defence work at Blackpool, training-walls, embankments and reclamation of land in connection with the Ribble navigation scheme, and the design and construction of the Preston Dock are among the principal works with which Mr. Sykes was identified.
He also carried out extensions of the Preston waterworks, the water-supply of Kirkby Lonsdale, Fylde, Padiham and Hopton, the Blackpool and Fleetwood tramroad, and a railway tunnel on the Preston and Longridge railway; and designed and built a number of public and commercial buildings in Preston and the neighbourhood. He acted as consulting engineer to several local authorities and as agent for various estates, and his services were much in request in connection with valuations and arbitrations.
Mr. Sykes died at Elston, near Preston, on the 10th August, 1907, in his sixty-seventh year.
He was elected a Member of The Institution on the 27th May, 1879.