Maurice Fitzgerald WILSON (1858-1945)

Individual Events and Attributes

Marriage

Individual Note 1

Maurice was at Eton College from 1871-1877. Whilst there he was awarded an enormous engraved pewter tankard for being "second in junior pulling"[!!]

Maurice Fitzgerald reached the top of his profession of civil engineering. His work included the building of the harbour at St. Ives in Cornwall, where there is a plaque. The details of his distinguished career are given in his obituary - printed below. Maurice's grandson Peter entered the same firm two generations later, where he spent his entire career, ending up as Managing Director, when the firm of Coode and Partners ceased to be a partnership.

Maurice was invited to become President of the Institute of Civil Engineers, but declined for family reasons. The correspondence about this is documented here.

Individual Note 2

Obituary, published in the Journal of Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. 26, 1945-6:

Maurice Fitzgerald Wilson was born on the 4th February, 1858, and died on the 23rd December, 1945. He was educated at Eton and at the Crystal Palace School of Engineering, and, after a short period at the Thames Ironworks, was articled in 1881 to Sir John Coode, K.C.M.G., Past-President Ins. S.E., spending most of his pupilage on the harbour works at Table Bay and Port Elizabeth. From 1883 to 1886 he was engaged on constructional work at Tilbury Docks for Messrs. Kirk and Randall and Messrs. Lucas and Aird, for whom he also worked on the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway. In 1888 he was appointed resident engineer on the construction of the breakwater at St. Ives, Cornwall. From 1892 to 1895 he was resident engineer on the dock works of the London and South western Railway at Southampton. In 1896 he was appointed superintending engineer in charge of the survey for the Admiralty harbour, Dover, and later for the construction of the works, on which he was engaged until 1905. In 1906 he joined the firm of Coode, Son and Matthews, of which in 1924, on the death of Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice, Past-President Inst. C.E., he became senior partner. For nearly forty years he was engaged in the design and construction of harbours, docks, sea defence works, bridges and barrages, including dock extnesions for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board; the Admiralty harbour of refuge at Peterhead; Fishguard harbour; the Lyttelton and gisbourne harbours, New Zealand; wharves and docks at Singapore; the Jahore causeway; Colombo harbour; entrance works and wharves at Lagos; harbour works on the Gold Coast, in Sierra Leone, and in Gambia; and work for the Whangpoo Conservancy Board, Shanghai. In 1921 he was appointed a member of the consultative committee ofengineers of the European Commission for the Danube. From 1929 to 1933 he was in charge of the technical investigation of the proposed Severn barrage, upon which the report issued in 1933 was based.

Mr. Wilson was elected an Associate Member of the Institution on the 5th February, 1884, and was transferred to the class of Member onthe 12th February, 1895. He was elected to the Council in November 1928 and became Vice-President in November 1937, but declined nomination for election as President in November 1940 owing to ill health. In the previous February he had been elected an Honorary Member of the Institution. In 1919 he presented a Paper on the Admiralty Harbour, Dover, for which he was awarded the George Stephenson Gold Medal and a Telford premium. He was a member of the Sea Action Committee and later acted as its Chairman. For many years he took a leading part in the work of the British Standards Institution, of which he was Chairman from 1922 to 1933, and honorary life chairman of its Engineering Divisional Council.

In 1884 he married Florence May, daughter of the Venerable Hopkins Badnall, Archdeacon of the Cape, and had two sons. Mrs. Wilson died in 1941.

Individual Note 3

Letter written to Maurice's son Fiennes' "Brass Hat" - a reference to his son's promotion within the Royal Navy? An image of the original letter is viewable as a Multimedia Object.

My dear Brass Hat,

Though you have been well known to me by name and reputation for some years I have never yet been brought into intimate relations with you so that in writing to offer you my congratulations I feel I should introduce myself lest you might think me presumptious. I understand you are now to adorn the head (of diminishing thatch?) of my son, up till this morning at 0000? hours a Lieutenant Commander R.N. and he, being as I have just said, my son, I introduce myself to you as his father. This will be clear and no doubt satisfactory. I feel it is a matter on which I may offer natural?? congratulations both to yourself and my son. To yourself fu?, though you will seldom have but? what I must describe as a birds eye view of him, you will I am sure be always comfortable and fairly well treated except upon the comparatively rare occasions when you may perchance be used as a water bucket or a football. At any rate I am sure you never be inconvenienced or pressed by any undue swelling of the temples. I am sure you will always be treated with consideration though you must not expect to be wrapped up in cotton wool. You will be carried high and will be naturally looked up to, provided this does not develope [sic] a squint. Nest?? in any case you may be sure the intention will be there.

My son I think must also receive my heartiest congratulations on having become your possessor. It is a prize he has long looked forward to with hopes of obtaining and I need not tell you with what pride and pleasure his mother and I saw? and I may call the announcement of your marriage in the papers this morning. This letter is therefore to wish you every success in your future journeyings together.

Please therefore accept these wishes yourself and convey them to Commander Wilson from his very loving

Father

Individual Note 5

Maurice, at the age of 13, was a pupil at a school in Kingston.

He is listed as having been born in London. In the 1891 census, he is shown living at Cliffe Hall with his brother John, who was "living on his means". Maurice is listed as a civil engineer; in this census he is listed as having been born in "Middlesex, London".

In the 1901 census he is living in "Bagenholt", Dover. Interestingly, at the time of the census, his wife Florence was absent, and he was in the house with his sister Mary Lucia and four servants.