James Folliott Stokes
James Foliott Stokes (1832-1899)
1864 James Folliott Stokes, Resident Engineer, West Shropshire Mineral Railway, Shrewsbury.[1]
1899 Obituary [2]
JAXES FOLLIOTT STOKES, youngest son of the late Mr. Charles Scott Stokes, of Beachley, Gloucestershire, was born on the 6th November, 1832.
He began his engineering career as a pupil of Sir Charles Fox. The first railway on which he was engaged was the Great Northern, at first on the construction of the bridge which carries that line over the Ouse near Huntingdon, and then in erecting all the iron bridges, aqueducts, &C., on a length of about 50 miles from south of Hatfield to near Peterborough. On the Ouse Bridge some of the foundations were weighted to 7 tons per superficial foot at the suggestion of Field-Marshal Sir John Burgoyne.
Subsequently Mr. Stokes was engaged in Derbyshire, and on the erection of buildings requiring foundations on land reclaimed from the sea in Portsmouth Dockyard. He had had some previous experience of that class of work at Pembroke Dockyard.
From 1853 to 1858 Mr. Stokes was employed principally on the Continent, at first having under his charge work in the south of Sweden and in the south of France, and then taking charge for some time of a length of 60 miles of the Lyons and Geneva Railway from a suburb of Lyons on the right bank of the Rhone to Amberieux on the main line, and from there on the branch line to Macon. This length of line runs for some miles along the Rhone, and is carried twice across the Ain on two large ashlar bridges of magnesian limestone. It crosses the Saone near Macon.
In 1854-55 a bridge just completed over the Sa6ne at Lyons on the junction between the Paris and Lyons and the Lyons and Mediterranean lines having fallen, English engineers were asked to design a new bridge of two spans of 200 feet with one pier, to be sunk through the foundations of the old bridge, to be founded dry under a pressure due to a column of water of a minimum height of 50 feet. Of the construction of this design Mr. Stokes took charge, and remained in charge until the bridge was opened for passenger traffic, to the exclusion of almost any other work, except the commencement of a bridge over the same river for the Lyons and Geneva Railway.
He was subsequently engaged for short periods in different ports of France, in Rhenish Prussia, and in Holland.
In 1862 Mr. Stokes returned to England, and with the exception of a short period in 1864 passed in Belgium and Holland studying the route of a proposed line from Malines to Terneuze, which involved the construction of a road and bridge over the Scheldt, he was actively engaged in English railway work from 1863 to 1867.
In 1868 he became connected with the Lahore and Peshawur Railway, on which he was employed for about three years.
In 1871 and 1872 he was employed as an Executive Engineer on the Kharian Division of the Punjab Northern State Railway.
In October, 1872, he was appointed Assistant Consulting Engineer to the Government of India for State Railways, and was engaged on various works in the Punjab and at Simla until 1878, when he returned to England. From that time Mr. Stokes retired gradually from active practice.
He died at the Isle, near Shrewsbury, on the 6th January, 1899, at the age of 66.
He was elected an Associate on the 6th December, 1859, and was subsequently placed in the class of Associate Members.