Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Dublin city engineer and borough surveyor, 1910-1913. John Gabriel O'Sullivan, son of George and Julia O'Sullivan, who was born in Dublin on 17 May 1868,(1) was a pupil of DANIEL J. FREEMAN DANIEL J. FREEMAN , Dublin City Architect, and also worked in the office GEORGE COPPINGER ASHLIN. I GEORGE COPPINGER ASHLIN. I n 1885 he entered the office of ROBERT MANNING ROBERT MANNING , Chief Engineer to the Board of Works, where he was employed from 1885 to 1887, at the same time attending the Schools of Science and Art and the Dublin Technical Schools; he also worked briefly with SAMUEL GORDON FRASER SAMUEL GORDON FRASER , and WILLIAM BARRINGTON [3]  WILLIAM BARRINGTON [3] in Limerick. In 1887 he was transferred to the office of JOHN GEORGE GAMBLE JOHN GEORGE GAMBLE , the newly-appointed chief hydraulic engineer for Ireland. In 1890, following Gamble's death from typhoid in November 1889, he joined the engineering staff of Dublin Corporation as assistant to the city engineer, SPENCER HARTY SPENCER HARTY . In 1894 he was appointed public health engineer to the Corporation. He became deputy borough surveyor in 1900. In 1910, following Harty's resignation, he was unanimously elected city engineer, borough surveyor and waterworks engineer at a salary of £800 per annum, rising by annual increments to £1,200 per annum.(2) He had held the post for only two and a half years when he died after a few days' illness at the age of forty-four on Christmas Day, 1912. He was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery on 27 December. Schemes with which he was closely identified included the extension of the Vartry Reservoir at Roundwood, and the Cook Street Area slum clearance scheme. He was working on the projected conversion of the Ringsend pumping station from steam to electricity at the time of his death.

AAI: elected member, 1896.(3)
ICEI: elected associate, 4 May 1892;(4) transferred to member, 13 April 1898;(5) reads paper. 'A proposed additional storage reservoir at Roundwood', 1 April 1908;(6) member of council, 1909 until death.(7)
Inst.CE: elected associate member, 4 February 1896.(8)

Addresses:(9) Home: 2 Charleville Terrace, North Circular Road, <=1892->=1906; 7 Breffni Terrace, Sandycove, <=1911 until death.(10)

See WORKS and BIBLIOGRAPHY. BIBLIOGRAPHY.



References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from O'Sullivan's candidate's circular for admission to membership of Inst.CE (Kindly supplied by Mrs Carol Morgan, archivist, Inst.CE), ICEI membership applications, III, 11, and from the obituaries in IB 55, 4 Jan 1913, 28-30 (illustrated with a portrait photograph), and TICEI 39 (1912-13), 220-221. Another photograph of O'Sullivan is in IB 52, 30 Apr 1910, 294.

(1) www.familysearch.org.
(2) IB 52, 30 Apr 1910, 294.
(3) Lists of members in AAI Green Books.
(4) TICEI 22 (1892-93), ?.
(5) TICEI 27 (1897-98), 50.
(6) TICEI 34 (1907-8), 94-120.
(7) Lists of officers in TICEI.
(8) He had evidently run athwart Wesley W. Wilson, former president of ICEI, who tried to block his admission to the English sister body with a letter written in April 1895, which alleged that there was no such office as sanitary engineer and that the candidate had been 'occasionally employed as Draughtsman & to apply a smoke test to House-Drains'.
(9) From lists of members in TICEI.
(10) The street number is given as 8 in the Irish Bulder obituary.


1 work entries listed in chronological order for O'SULLIVAN, JOHN GABRIEL


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Building: CO. WICKLOW, ROUNDWOOD, RESERVOIR
Date: 1908p
Nature: New storage reservoir on River Vartry, for Dublin Corporation. With Spencer Harty.
Refs: Drawing, dated 1907, in IAA Workhouse Drawings Collection, Acc. 85/138 (not available for inspection on account of its extremely fragile condition); TICEI 34 (1907-8), 94-120

Author Title Date Details
O'sullivan, John George 'Description of the works in connection with the proposed additional storage reservoir at Roundwood, Co. Wicklow, for the Corporation of Dublin' 1908 IB 50, 16 May 1908, 294; TICEI 34 (1907-8), 94-120.