Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Railway engineer, specializing in rolling-stock. Henry Corlett, son of another Henry Corlett, was born in Dublin in 1826. He was educated in Dublin and apprenticed to Mssrs. John Hutton, manufacturers of rolling stock. He is said in his obituary in the Minutes and Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers to have then entered the school of engineering at Trinity College Dublin, although there is no other record of his having done so.(1) He was next appointed superintendent of rolling-stock on the Great Northern line at Drogheda, then, in about 1850, transferred to the Inchicore works of the Great Southern and Western Railway, where he remained until 1877.   In 1854 he took out an English patent on 'Improvements in caoutchouc springs for locomotive engines and tenders, railway carriages, and wagons'.(2)

In his last years Corlett lived in London, where, 'having previously taken much interest in the tramway system in Dublin', he became chairman of the Southwark and Deptford and the Woolwich Tram Companies. In 1880 his health began to fail, and he died on 19 April 1883.

Inst.CE: elected associate, 6 March 1860.



References

All information in this entry is from the obituary of Corlett in Min.Proc.Inst.CE 74 (1882-3), 293-4.


(1) He does not appear in G.D. Burtchaell & T.U. Sadleir, eds., Alumni Dublinenses (1935) or in R.C. Cox, compiler, 'Trinity College School of Engineering: Graduates in Englineering 1843-1993', unpaginated.
(2) Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal 17 (Feb 1854), 80.