CLERKE, WILLIAM JOHN BIRD

Irish-born engineer, who spent the greater part of his career working for the Public Works Department of the Government of India. William Clerke was born on 2 February 1838 at Lorigga, near Skibbereen, Co. Cork. He was educated at Dr Stackpoole's School, Kingstown, and Trinity College, Dublin, where he gained a BA degree and a diploma in engineering in 1860. On leaving Trinity he became a pupil of the railway engineer WILLIAM RICHARD LE FANU WILLIAM RICHARD LE FANU . He was employed for five years on the Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford Railway and for two and a half years on the Great Northern and Western Railway before going out to India in 1868. For his work on the Tansa waterworks, Bombay, opened in 1892, Clerke was made a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire. In January 1894 he was appointed engineering inspector under the Local Government Board in London, where he died on 13 February 1896 after an operation for a malignant condition of the throat.

ICEI: elected member, 1864 or 1865;(1) no longer on list of members for 1870.
Inst.CE: elected member, 2 May 1871.

Address: Ballintemple, Arklow, 1864.(2)

All information in this entry not otherwise attributed is from Clerke's obituary in Min.Proc.Inst.CE 125 (1896), 400-401.

(1) ICEI membership applications, I, 74.
(2) See note 1, above.