Thomas Curtis Clarke

Not to be confused with poet and composer Thomas Curtis Clarke, or U.S Attorney General Thomas Campbell Clark.

Thomas Curtis Clarke (16 September 1827 – 15 June 1901) was a railway engineer, builder and author best known for a series of cast iron bridges in the United States. While living and working in Port Hope, Ontario, his firm won the contract to build the east and west blocks of the Canadian Houses of Parliament. Thomas Curtis Clarke is buried in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada.

"The world of today differs from that of Napoleon Bonaparte more than his world differed from that of Julius Caesar, and this change has chiefly been made by engineering.

— Thomas Curtis Clarke

Life

Early work

Clarke was born in Newton, Massachusetts on 16 September 1827 and as a boy he attended the Boston Latin School. He enrolled at Harvard University, graduating in 1848 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in engineering, working under Captain John Child.

References

Bibliography

• Frank Griggs Jr., "Thomas C. Clarke", STRUCTUREmag", May 2008
• (Times), "THOMAS CURTIS CLARKE DEAD.; Was One of line Most Widely Known Civil Engineers in America.", New York Times, 17 June 1901
• Alan Brown, "Thomas Curtis Clarke 1827-1901", Ontario's Historical Plaques

Further reading

• Thomas Curtis Clarke et al., "The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management and Appliances", Charles Scribner's Sones, 1889
• "Who Was T.C. Clarke, C.E.", SSAC Bulletin, Vol. 17, No. 4, December 1992, Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada (SSAC), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. (article by Jim Leonard; this research provided the impetus, in 1993, for the Ontario Heritage Trust to erect a 'blue and gold' provincial heritage plaque in downtown Port Hope.)