Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Railway engineer, of Dublin and London. Matthew Blakiston was born on 13 January 1821, the eldest son of Major John Blakiston of Mobberley Hall, Cheshire. After attending London University he came to Ireland, where, during the 1840s, he was, together with WILLIAM RICHARD LE FANU WILLIAM RICHARD LE FANU , principal assistant to JOHN MACNEILL  JOHN MACNEILL on the construction of the sections of line which became the Great Southern & Western railway.(1) By 1853 he had set up an office in Dublin.(2) He laid out the Banbridge & Lisburn railway in 1859(3) and was engineer to the Banbridge, Lisburn & Belfast Railway Co. from 1863 to 1865.(4) He was also engineer for the extension of the Dublin & Drogheda railway from Kells to Oldcastle in 1861-2.(5) By 1870 he was working from London.(6) He died on 19 April 1907.

ICEI: elected member, 1862;(7) council member, 1863.(8)

Addresses:(9) Work: 3 Foster Place, <=1853->=1858; 9 Eustace Street, 1862;(10) 10 Eustace Street, 1863; Westminster, London SW, 1870.(11)
Home: 8 Waterloo Rd, <=1853->=1863.



References

All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from Burke's Peerage (1940), 310.

(1) Obituary of Le Fanu in Min.Proc.Inst.CE 19 (1894-95), 395.
(2) Post Office Directory 1853.
(3) DB 1, 1 Jan 1859, 9.
(4) Jones transcripts from Thom's directories, 1863-5.
(5) DB 3, 1,15 May 1861, 501,519; 4, 1 Mar 1862, 61.
(6) List of ICEI members in IB 12, 15 Aug 1870, 197.
(7) See note 6, above.
(8) Thom's Directory 1863, 853.
(9) From Thoms's & Post Office directories, 1853,1857,1858,1863, unless otherwise stated.
(10) ICEI admissions applications, I, 52.
(11) See note 6, above.