County surveyor for the Western Division of Co. Limerick, 1874-77, and for Co. Waterford, 1877-1914. William Edmund Duffin, son of the Rev. William Duffin (d.1882), vicar of Maghera, Co. Down, and his wife Lucy, daughter of Edmund L'Estrange, of Hunstanton, Co. Offaly, was admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of seventeen in 1860 and obtained the BA degree in 1865 and the Licence in Civil Engineering in 1866. After graduating he spent a year as a pupil of Sir JOHN and TELFORD MACNEILL TELFORD MACNEILL , then worked for WILLIAM LEWIS WILLIAM LEWIS in Dublin, then for CHARLES GALWAY CHARLES GALWAY on the Central Ireland Railway, followed by two and a half years on the Geological Survey of Ireland. In the spring of 1874 he was appointed county surveyor for the western division of Co. Limerick, a post which he held until the autumn of 1877 when he was transferred to the county surveyorship of Waterford. He retired from the Waterford post in October 1914 to be succeeded by JOHN KINGSTON BOWEN JOHN KINGSTON BOWEN the following April. His pupils and assistants included GEORGE HASTINGS JEPHSON GEORGE HASTINGS JEPHSON and RICHARD WILLIAM FREDERICK LONGFIELD RICHARD WILLIAM FREDERICK LONGFIELD .
After his retirement Duffin lived in Dublin. He died on 25 July 1925 at the age of 82 and was buried in Mount Jerome cemetery. He had married Alice Susie, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Seymour Eager, rector of Drumgooland, Co, Down, on 1 April 1880. They had at least one son, who died at the age of two in 1884.
GLFI: elected member of Lodge 225, Dublin, 13 April 1873, and raised 6 June 1874.
ICEI: elected member, March 1878; awarded Smith premium for paper, 'The encroachment of the sea, beaches, and groynes' read 13 February 1884.
Addresses: Home: 9 Fitzwilliam St Lr, Dublin, 1873; Tramore House, Co. Waterford, 1878; Whitechurch House, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, 1884->=1887; Larkfield, Waterford, <=1889-1913; 2 Orwell Park, Rathgar, Co. Dublin, <=1917 until death.
See WORKS, BIBLIOGRAPHY. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
References
All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from ICEI Membership Applications, II, 57, ICEI membership lists and from Brendan O'Donoghue.
J.B. Leslie, ed., Succession Lists of the Diocese of Dromore (1933), 193.
G.D. Burtchaell & T.U. Sadleir, eds., Alumni Dublinenses (1935), Supplement, 35.
R.C. Cox, Trinity College School of Engineering: 'Graduates' in Engineering 1843-1993 (1993).
IB 56, 26 Oct 1914, 598.
Waterford County Library death register database at www.waterford county library.ie (B.O'D.).
GLFI archives.
TICEI 16 (1884-85), ? .
See note 6, above.