CROASDAILE, JOHN ERNEST

Engineer, of Belfast. John Ernest Croasdaile, fourth son of John Croasdaile, JP, of Rynn, Co. Laois, by his wife, Anna Jane, née Townshend, was born in Dublin on 20 September 1867. After attending Corrig School, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1886, and, following a distinguished university career, obtained the BAI degree in 1892.(1) In January 1893 he was articled to Edward Parry of Nottingham, with whom he remained, first as a pupil and then as an assistant, engaged on a various railway work in England, until April 1897. He then joined the engineering staff of the Midland Railway and in 1901 of the London and North Western and Great Western Joint Railways.

Croasdaile appears to have returned to Ireland in 1904, when he gave his widowed mother's house at Killiney, Co. Dublin, as his address. Early the following year he entered into partnership with JOHN HARRIS HAZLETT SWINEY  JOHN HARRIS HAZLETT SWINEY of Belfast. At some stage the architect GODFREY WILLIAM FERGUSON  GODFREY WILLIAM FERGUSON also joined the practice.(2) Following Swiney's death in 1931, Croasdaile succeeded him as consulting engineer for the Coleraine water supply extension scheme.(3) He died on 10 January 1954. He had married Una Mary, née Fetherstonhaugh in 1907, and was the father of two sons and a daughter.

Inst.CE: elected associate member 5 December 1899; transferred to member, 22 December 1903.

Addresses: Engineer's Office, London & North Western & Great Western Railways, Birkenhead;  Avenue Chambers, 83 Royal Avenue, Belfast, 1905->=1931; 68 Royal Avenue, Belfast, 1945.
Home: 3 Shanganagh Terrace, Killiney, Co. Dublin, 1904;  7 Innisfayle Road, Duncairn, Belfast, 1911.

For works of Swiney & Croasdaile see under works of JOHN HARRIS HAZLETT SWINEY. JOHN HARRIS HAZLETT SWINEY.

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from Burke's Irish Family Records(1976), 291, and from the records of the Institution of Civil Engineers, kindly supplied by the Archivist, Mrs Carol Morgan.

(1) R.C. Cox, compiler, Trinity College School of Engineering: 'Graduates' in Engineering 1843-1992 (1993), unpaginated.
(2) The practice is named as Swiney, Ferguson & Croasdaile in both Ferguson and Swiney's obituaries in IB, but there are no other references to it under this name elsewhere in IB, where Ferguson's works appear under his name and Swiney & Croasdaile's under theirs.
(2) Obituary of Swiney in IB 73, 6 Jun 1931, 520.

1 work entries listed in chronological order for CROASDAILE, JOHN ERNEST

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