Anthony George Lyster
Anthony George Lyster (1852-1920) the son of George Fosbery Lyster of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board
1904 'LYSTER, A. G., engineer of the Mersey Docks Estate, and Engineer-in-chief to the Port of London, is the vice-president of the Liverpool Self-propelled Traffic Association, and has long been a convert to the great possibilities of self-propelled traffic. Club: A.C.G.B. & I.' [1]
1924 Obituary [2]
ANTHONY GEORGE LYSTER, Past-President, second son of Mr. George Fosbery Lyster, M. Inst. C.E., was born at Holyhead on the 6th April, 1852, and died in London on the 17th March, 1920. After four years at Harrow School (1867-71) and a year in Germany under a private tutor at Bonn, he became a pupil under his father, then Engineer to the Mersey Dock Trust. After a short term spent in the drawing-office of the Elswick works of Sir W. G. Armstrong and Company, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, he returned to Liverpool, and was placed in charge, from the beginning of 1877, of the construction of the north and south dock extension works at Liverpool. These works, which had been sanctioned in 1873, to the designs of his father, involved a cost of about 4 millions sterling and added to the port a water area of about 100 acres and 6 miles of quay. They were described in a Paper by Mr. G. F. Lyster, presented to The Institution in 1890.
He became Acting Engineer-in-Chief to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in 1890, and in the next eight years further development work, including the entire reconstruction of several docks, and involving the expenditure of 38 millions sterling, was undertaken under his direction. In 1898 he was appointed Engineer-in-Chief, and he held that position until 1913, when he became partner in the firm of Sir John Wolfe Barry and Partners. He continued to be the Consulting Engineer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and as such was responsible for the design of the Gladstone dock and the Mersey estuary revetment scheme. In the 50 years during which father and son were responsible for the engineering work of the Port of Liverpool, more than 13 millions sterling was expended on its docks.
Mr. A. G. Lyster adopted sand dredging on an extensive scale for dealing with the Mersey bar, and made important improvements in dredging plant. After some preliminary work, which he described in a Paper presented to the International Maritime Congress in 1893, the 3,000-ton hopper suction dredger "Brancker," fitted with a novel discharge system, was put into commission in 1893. Two others of similar capacity were added later, and in 1908 a fourth vessel, the "Leviathan," of 10,000 tons hopper-capacity, was built to Mr. Lyster's designs.
He was consulted at various times in connection with the improvement of other important harbours and ports, e.g., New York, Bombay, Port Elizabeth, and Shanghai. In 1908 he was appointed a member of the International Technical Commission for the Suez Canal. Mr. Lyster was a Lieut.-Colonel in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, and an Associate Professor of Dock and Harbour Engineering in the University of Liverpool, which conferred upon him in 1911 the Honorary Degree of Master of Engineering.
He married, in 1892, Frances, fourth daughter of the late Mr. R. P. Long, and sister of Viscount Long of Wraxall.
He was elected a full Member of The Institution in 1882, became a member of the Council in 1904, and was President for the year 1913-14. In his Presidential Address to The Institution he dealt with the subject of the constitution of port authorities as affecting the organization and development of ports.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Motoring Annual and Motorist’s Year Book 1904
- ↑ 1924 Institution of Civil Engineers: Obituaries