Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

County surveyor for the East Riding of Co. Galway, 1919-1940, and for the whole county, 1940-1956. According to the 1911 census, George Lee, a son of Joseph William Lee, a retired colonial civil servant, and his wife Katie, was born in Galway in 1891 or 1892.  He was educated at St Joseph's College, Ballinasloe, and Mount St Joseph's, Roscrea, before entering University College, Galway, to study engineering. On obtaining the BE degree in 1912, he entered the service of Galway District Council and in 1913 was appointed an assistant county surveyor for the East Riding of the county. In 1919 he was promoted to county surveyor for the East Riding, holding the post until 1940, when, on the almagamation of the County Council's engineering services, he became county surveyor for the whole county. After his retirement in 1956,(1) he became the Irish agent for the the firm of Ruddock & Meighan. He was a founder member and first chairman of the west regional branch of the Engineers' Association and, for two years, president of the county Engineers' Association.

Lee died in 1961.   He had married Mary Rossiter, of Ballinasloe, on 10 September 1924.(3)  A profile of him in the Irish Engineering Journal for October 1950 described the 'quality of effervescent youth' which was his particular attraction: 'For despite the burden of public affairs which weigh down upon his mind this tall spare man with steel grey temples and rugged features can still laugh with all the gay abandon of a boy.'(2) 

ICEI: elected member, 1931.(4)



References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from the 1911 census of Ireland, http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ (last visited Oct 2009) and from the obituary of Lee in the Engineers' Journal 14, Apr 1961, 155.  For a full account of Lee's career as county surveyor, see Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 239-240.


(1) B.O'D.
(2) Irish Engineering Journal 1 (No. 10, Oct 1950), 317.
(3) Irish Times, 8 Aug 1924 (information from Brendan O'Donoghue, 2015)..
(3) ICEI lists of members.