Humphrey Harford Gostwyck Gostwyck
Humphrey Harford Gostwyck Gostwyck (c1872-1943)
1944 Obituary [1]
HUMPHREY HARFORD GOSTWYCK GOSTWYCK had a long and varied experience as a civil and constructional engineer in connection with railways and public works, both in this country and abroad. He was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1910 and was also a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. After serving his time at the Canal Basin Foundry, Glasgow, from 1890 to 1892, and for a few months with Messrs. Bow, McLachlan and Company, of Paisley, where he gained experience in the drawing office, he became a pupil of Mr. Murdock Patterson, chief engineer of the Highland Railway, and also acted as assistant resident engineer for the construction of the line from Inverness to Aviemore during 1892-6.
During the next six years he was employed in. a similar capacity under Sir Benjamin Baker and partners, being chiefly concerned with the surveys for and construction of a section of the Central London Railway. A brief partnership with Mr. J. B. Corrie was followed by his taking up residence in India and Malaya in 1902 where he remained for fifteen years. He was first engaged as temporary engineer during the construction of the East Indian Railway from 1902 to 1906 and latterly as engineer in charge of all public works, for the municipality of Singapore.
He relinquished this appointment in 1917 and joined the Royal Engineers, proceeding in the same year to France where he held a staff appointment. He left the army in 1919 and two years later accepted an appointment under the Public Works Department of the Brazilian Government by whom he was employed on the layout and construction of a large darn. On the abandonment of this scheme by the Brazilian Government in 1923 he returned to England; but after an interval of two years made his final journey abroad to East Africa where he acted as chief assistant to the contractor's agent, at that time engaged on the construction of an extension of the Uganda Railway.
Mr. Gostwyck, whose death in his seventy-first year occurred at Tunbridge Wells in July 1943, had been living in retirement since 1928.