Thomas Grainger

File:Thomas Grainger grave, Gogar Kirkyard.JPG

Grainger's grave at Gogar

Thomas Grainger FRSE (12 November 1794 – 25 July 1852) was a Scottish civil engineer and surveyor. He was principal partner in the prominent engineering firm of Grainger & Miller.

Life

He was born in Ratho, outside Edinburgh, to Hugh Grainger and Helen Marshall. Educated at Edinburgh University, at sixteen he got a job with John Leslie, a land surveyor.

He started his own practice in 1816. In 1825 he formed a partnership with John Miller which lasted until 1847. Their firm operated from the ground floor of Grainger's house at 56 George Street, in the centre of Edinburgh's New Town.

Between 1845 and 1849 he was engaged on the difficult tasks of digging the Bramhope Tunnel and building the Arthington Viaduct as part of laying the Leeds to Stockton-on-Tees line. The first modern rail ferry, the Leviathan, was designed in 1849 by Grainger for the Edinburgh, Perth and Dundee Railway to cross the Firth of Forth between Granton and Burntisland. The service commenced on 3 February 1850.

Projects he was involved in included many railway bridges, viaducts and tunnels, including work on the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway, Ballochney Railway, Garnkirk and Glasgow Railway, Wishaw and Coltness Railway, Paisley and Renfrew Railway, Dundee and Arbroath Railway, Arbroath and Forfar Railway, and the Leeds Northern Railway, where he was chief engineer at the time of his death.

He was president of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts 1849-51, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

He married Jessie Marshall around 1843. He died in Stockton-on-Tees in 1852 as a result of injuries sustained in a train crash, and was buried in the kirkyard at Gogar.