Colonel Thomas Henry Sale R.E. (1814-1903)
1840 Lieut. T. H. Sale became a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.[1]
1904 Obituary [2]
THOMAS HENRY SALE, Colonel R.E. retired, who died at his residence, 147 Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, on the 13th December, 1903, aged 89, was the oldest officer in the corps of Royal Engineers.
Son of the late Mr. Richard Cowlishaw Sale, Clerk to the Grand Junction Canal Company, he was born in London on the 8th December, 1814, and was educated at Westminster and at Addiscombe.
He was appointed to the Bengal Engineers as Second Lieutenant in December, 1830, and after the usual course at Chatham joined the Sappers and Miners at Delhi in 1832.
After surveying the cantonments of Agra and Muttra, he was employed on public works in districts extending from Peshawar in the north-west to Sylhet and Assam on the east, and Jubbulpur towards the south.
In 1856 he was appointed Superintending Engineer in Bengal, and three years later he retired and from that time lived in London. Colonel Sale was a good geometrical draughtsman.
In later life he became a collector of pictures and curios.
He married in 1848 Miss Maria Ravenhill, of Cheetham Hill, Manchester, and is survived by his only child, Mrs. Shawcross, wife of the vicar of Chadwell Heath.
Colonel Sale at the time of his death was third on the roll of seniority of the Institution, of which he was elected an Associate on the 2nd June, 1840.