BURDEN, ALEXANDER MITCHELL

County surveyor for Kilkenny, 1894-1923. Alexander Mitchell Burden, elder son of Henry Burden, M.D., of Alfred Street, Belfast, and his wife Anna Maccormac,(1) was born in Belfast on 12 October 1864 and named after his great-grandfather ALEXANDER MITCHELL [2]. ALEXANDER MITCHELL [2]. (2) He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution from 1875 until 1882 and at Queen's College, Belfast, from 1882 to 1885, gaining first class honours in the BE degree examination.(2) He was a Gold Medallist of the Royal University of Ireland. Following his graduation from Queen's, he spent three years as assistant to ALEXANDER TATE ALEXANDER TATE and JOHN HENRY BRETT JOHN HENRY BRETT , YOUNG & YOUNG & amp; MACKENZIE  MACKENZIE and JOHN LANYON. F JOHN LANYON. F rom 1888 until 1892 he was in Argentina, working on the Buenos Ayres Great Southern railway. On his return to Europe, he was engaged as a surveyor on the civil staff of the Royal Engineers. After obtaining second place in the qualifying examination for Irish county surveyorships, he was appointed county surveyor for Kilkenny in November 1894. He held the post until February 1923, when he finally resigned after ill health had prevented him from working for a year. He died on 9 March 1923. He was a Unitarian.(3) He married Elizabeth, daughter of James Sullivan, of Lacken Hall, Co. Kilkenny, proprietor of Sullivan's Brewery, in 1898 or 1899. At the time of the 1911 census the couple had three sons and a daughter, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth  married Burden's successor in the surveyorship, RICHARD FRANCIS BOWEN RICHARD FRANCIS BOWEN . Burden's pupils and assistants included WILLIAM FITZ-GERALD BARRY.  WILLIAM FITZ-GERALD BARRY.

ICEI: elected member, 7 February 1912.(4)
Inst.CE: elected member, 7 April 1891.(5)

Address: Bellevue, Kilkenny, <=1906 until death.(6)

See WORKS.

References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from Burden's candidate's circular for admission to membership of Inst.CE (kindly supplied by Mrs Carol Morgan, archivist, Inst.CE), from Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 117-119, which gives the fullest account of Burden's life and career as a county surveyor, from  IB 36, 15 Jan 1894, 23, from the obituary of Burden in the Kilkenny People, 17 Mar 1923, and from Brendan O'Donoghue's research notes.


(1) Burden's parents' names are given in www.familysearch.org, which gives his date of birth as 13 October, rather than 12 October as stated by Burden himself in his Inst. CE membership application.
(2) According to O'Donoghue, loc. cit., Mitchell's daughter Margaret married Burden's grandfather William Burden, first professor of midwifery at Queen's College, Belfast.
(3) Calendar of the Royal University of Ireland (1886) (B.O'D.).
(3) Queen's University matriculation register (B.O'D.).
(4) TICEI 38 (1912), 85.
(5) Charter…and list of members of the Institution of Civil Engineers (1914), 162.
(6) IB 50, 25 Jul 1908, 465; TICEI lists of members.

11 work entries listed in chronological order for BURDEN, ALEXANDER MITCHELL

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Building:	CO. KILKENNY, CALLAN, UNION WORKHOUSE
Date:	1901;1906
Nature:	Drainage
Refs:	IB 43, 26 Sep 1901, 874; 48, 8 Sep 1906, 742

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, KILKENNY, WATER SUPPLY
Date:	1902-1905
Nature:	AMB & L.L. Macassey engineers for new Kilkenny waterworks, for Kilkenny Corporation.
Refs:	IB 44, 9 Oct 1902, 1440; 47, 22 Apr 1905, 269

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, KILKENNY, HEBRON ROAD, UNION WORKHOUSE
Date:	1903;1914
Nature:	2 sanitary annexes; drainage
Refs:	IB 44, 4,18 Jun,16 Jul 1903, 1806,1830,1883; 56, 18 Jul 1914, 448

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, TALBOT'S INCH (KILKENNY), TOBACCO CURING FACILITY
Date:	1904p
Nature:	AB architect for project. For Otway Cuffe.
Refs:	Nicola Gordon Bowe, '"The wild heath has broken out again in the heather field': Philanthropic endeavour and Arts and Crafts achievement in early 20th-century Kilkenny, Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies II (1999), 73

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, GREENVALE (KILKENNY), KILKENNY WOOLLEN MILLS
Date:	1905
Nature:	AMB executant architect for new mill, designed by Mr Hunter, manager of mill. For Otway Cuffe. Contract given, 11 Jul 1905.  Opened, 16 Apr 1906.  Contractor: Clear & Son, Kilkenny.
Refs:	Irish Times, 17 Apr 1906 (architect's name wrongly given as' Mr Byrne');  Nicola Gordon Bowe, '"The wild heath has broken out again in the heather field': Philanthropic endeavour and Arts and Crafts achievement in early 20th-century Kilkenny, Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies II (1999), 72,74-5(illus.).

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, KILKENNY-INISTIOGE CANAL
Date:	1906
Nature:	Designs and estimates for renewal of same. Not carried out.
Refs:	Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 119

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, ARCHERSTOWN HOUSE
Date:	1906-07
Nature:	AMB supervising architect for new house, for James Poe, LL.D., on banks of River Nore designed by W.M. Mitchell & Sons. Contractor: T.A. Walsh, Kilmallock & Kilkenny.
Refs:	IB 50, 25 Jul 1908, 465; 50, 11 Jan 1908, 22(illus.)

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, KILKENNY, ST JOHN'S BRIDGE
Date:	1910
Nature:	New single-span ferro-concrete bridge in association with L.G. Mouchel & Partners.
Refs:	IB 52, 12 Nov 1910, 692; Nicola Gordon Bowe, '"The wild heath has broken out again in the heather field': Philanthropic endeavour and Arts and Crafts achievement in early 20th-century Kilkenny, Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies II (1999), 86; Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 118

Building:	CO. WATERFORD, WATERFORD, BRIDGE OVER RIVER SUIR
Date:	1910-1913
Nature:	AMB engineer-in-chief for new ferro-concrete bridge with lifting section. With M. Mouchel, chief engineer of Hennebique Co., & W.E. L'Estrange Duffin. Contractors: Kinnear, Moodie & Co., Glasgow. (Lifting portion of bridge designed by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co., Darlington; opening mechanism designed by Claude W.Hill, Westminster.)
Refs:	IB 52, 9 Jul 1910, 450; 53, 18 Feb 1911, 121; 55, 4 Jan 1913, 6; J.O. Moynan, 'A short description of the existing bridges at Waterford and Portumna and of the proposed new bridges to replace them', TICEI 36 (1909-10), 224-250 (also published in IB 52, 25 Jun 1910, 405); Edmund Downey, Waterford's Bridges (Waterford News, n.d.), ?; Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 118-9

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, KILKENNY, DUBLIN ROAD, LACKEN HALL
Date:	1911
Nature:	Reconstruction in connection with asylum extensions, Kilkenny. (This was the house of AMB's parents-in-law.)
Refs:	IA & C 1, 22 Apr 1911, 173; IB 53, 27 May,9 Dec 1911, 362,822

Building:	CO. KILKENNY, KILMANAGH, CHURCH OF ST AIDAN (CI)
Date:	1915
Nature:	Reconstruction. Only walls of old building remain, which have been raised by 2 feet, Belfry raised. Rose window in N gable, Celtic cross &c. Contractor: T.A. Walsh, John St, Kilkenny (work ) supervised by Thomas Connolly, local manager).
Refs:	IB 57, 17 Jul 1915, 326;  exterior illus. in Clergy of Ossory (Ulster Historical Foundation, 2013), 43;