Rienzi Giesman Walton
Rienzi Giesman Walton (1842-1900)
1901 Obituary [1]
RIENZI GIESMAN WALTON, born in 1842 at Kensington, was the second son of the late Mr. John Whitehead Walton, artist.
As he exhibited at an early age a marked talent for technical drawing and art generally, it was determined that he should follow his father’s profession, and with that view he studied at Carey’s Art School.
Subsequently, however, his father, having made the acquaintance of the late Mr. Thomas Page, to whom are due the handsome bridges over the Thames at Westminster and Chelsea, decided that the engineering profession would be more suitable for him and articled him therefore to Mr. Page in 1860.
After serving his articles young Walton, in 1865, went to India and was employed at once under the municipality of Bombay. He passed through the grades of Assistant, Deputy, and Executive Engineer to the Municipality, the last-named appointment dating from 1872. Mr. Walton held that post for seventeen years, designing and carrying out during that time a great number of important works, among which may be mentioned the following:- the Tulsi Lake, an artificial reservoir about 15 miles from Bombay for adding to the domestic supply of the city, the works including a masonry dam 90 feet high (at that time the highest masonry dam in India) and an earthen dam nearly half a mile long, and costing about £400,000; a masonry storage reservoir at Malabar Hill, 700 feet long by 400 feet wide by 20 feet deep, for supplying the higher portions of the city, the water having to be pumped into the reservoir and filtered before being delivered for use; and a new outlet tower, in water 65 feet deep, with a tunnel for carrying the water-supply from Vehar Lake, the works costing about £150,OOO.
Mr. Walton also prepared a complete scheme for the sewerage of the City of Bombay which, after investigation by a special committee appointed by the Bombay Government, was sanctioned and carried out at a cost of £600,000. This project involved the pumping of 15,000,000 gallons of sewage daily, and the laying of a double-barrelled outfall sewer, 800 feet out into the open sea to ensure the discharge of the sewage 6 feet below the level of the sea at low water of spring tides; this work was carried out under great difficulties but with complete success.
All the tedious and troublesome arrangements of house drainage, public and private latrines, etc., to suit the habits of natives prejudiced against the European system of sewage to which they were unaccustomed, devolved on Mr, Walton, and it affords strong evidence of his tact and skill that he was able to overcome those prejudices and to reconcile the natives to the introduction of European drainage.
A very large area of the most densely populated part of Bombay being below the level of high water and subject to flooding at times of heavy rain, Mr. Walton had to design and carry out a complete system of drains with a view to intercept the flood-waters before they could flow to the lower levels of the city. The difficulty and importance of the problem may to some extent be understood from the fact that the rainfall to be provided for amounted to as much as 16 inches in 24 hours, which sometimes takes place in Bombay. The works comprised about 4 miles of underground channels, a storm-water reservoir, and numerous flood-gates. As the sills of these gates had to be put at the level of low water of spring tides, which have a range of 16 feet, and as the works had necessarily to be exposed to the full force of the monsoon, it speaks well for the efficient manner in which they were designed and carried out when it is borne in mind that they have now been completed for many years and have effectually resisted the destructive power of the huge waves which break over them. The total cost of these works, which were entirely approved of by the Government of Bombay, was £150,000.
Besides the above works, Bombay owes some of its finest roads and bridges to Mr. Walton. His early training for the profession of an artist fitted him in a large measure for the work also of the architect, and many of the handsomest buildings in Bombay are due to his skill and experience. It is only necessary to mention a few of these to show how active and busy a life he must have led during his career as Municipal Engineer of Bombay :-the Corporation Buildings, the Sassoon House, the Pedder Markets, the Colaba Markets, Nal Bazaar Extension, the Arthur Crawford Markets Extension, the Police Barracks, and the Pumping Station at Love Grove. So well known was his aesthetic taste that he was entrusted by the Corporation to design the Jubilee Casket to contain the address for presentation to the Queen-Empress Victoria.
He also designed the presentation to the King (then Prince of Wales) on the occasion of His Majesty’s visit to India, and that to the Duke of Connaught on joining the army there. Mr. Walton was also selected by the Parsees of Bombay to design the casket in which they presented their address to the late Queen on her assumption of the title of Empress of India. In addition to these, Mr. Walton designed numerous other presentations for the Corporation and other public bodies, and on the occasion of the Jubilee, as also on that of the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, the public decoration and illumination of the city were entrusted to him. He also designed and laid out the Elphinstone Circle Gardens, the Parsee Bazar Sale Garden, the Jehangir Garden, the Northbrook Garden, the Falkland Road Garden, the Hanging Gardens at Malabar Hill, and the New Gardens at Mahalacksmi.
In 1889, in consequence of illness, Mr. Walton was compelled to return to England, and in that year he was appointed an Engineering Inspector under the Local Government Board, from which post he was promoted in 1898 to Second Deputy Chief Inspector, and in 1900 to Deputy Chief, the post he held at the time of his death, which was so sudden and unexpected that he attended at the Local Government Board offices as usual on the 28th December, 1900, but, not feeling well, returned home, and on the following day expired from a Lesion in the brain in the 58th year of his age.
Mr. Walton in his leisure moments always turned to art, painting skilfully in both water and oil colours. He was unassuming in manner, a firm friend, and popular with his colleagues. His personal character is perhaps best described by quoting the words of one with whom he was officially connected for many years:- "Mentally and morally a strong man, who never feared to say and do what he thought right, he had the entire respect and affection of every one who knew him."
Mr. Walton was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 6th February, 1872, was subsequently placed in the class of Associate Members, and was transferred to the class of Members on the 9th December, 1879.