County surveyor for Co. Armagh, 1887-1921. Richard Henry Dorman was born in Cork on 18 May 1858, the fifth son of the Rev. Thomas Dorman of Richmond House, Cork, curate of St Anne's, Shandon, Cork, by his wife Charlotte Isabella, née Hobart. He was a younger brother of JOHN WILLIAM DORMAN JOHN WILLIAM DORMAN and uncle of WILLIAM STEWART HOBART DORMAN WILLIAM STEWART HOBART DORMAN and HENRY CHUDLEIGH DORMAN HENRY CHUDLEIGH DORMAN . After attending the Royal Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, Surrey, he served in the Public Works Department at Madras from 1879 to 1882, and also worked in England and in west Co. Cork.
Dorman was appointed county surveyor for Co. Mayo on 15 July 1886, but, after less than six months in the post, was transferred to Co. Armagh, taking up his new duties in January 1887. He remained in Armagh until 1921, when he was succeeded by EDGAR MCCONNELL EDGAR MCCONNELL . His energies were primarily directed at road construction and maintainance. In 1910 he delivered three papers at the Irish Roads Congress, which was published in the proceedings of the congress.
Some years after his retirement, Dorman moved to Ballea Castle, Co. Cork, where he died at the age of ninety-one on 8 September 1949, survived by one of his two sons and one of his two daughters; his wife, born Beatrice Nora Jane Crooke in Sheffield, whom he had married in 1889, predeceased him in 1942. At the time of his death he was the oldest member of the South Union Hunt. His pupils and assistants included SAMUEL WILSON RESIDE. SAMUEL WILSON RESIDE.
Association of Municipal & County Engineers: member 1888; hon. secretary, Irish District, <=1895->=1913.
Inst.CE: elected member 7 Febrary 1893.
RSAI: elected member, 13 January 1891.
Addresses: Poolsford, Armagh, 1901; Tullymore Park, Armagh, <=1911->=1915; Ballea Castle, Carrigaline, Co. Cork.
See WORKS and BIBLIOGRAPHY. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
References
All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 153-155, Burke's Irish Family Records (1976), 377, and from the brief obituary in IB 91, 29 Oct 1949, 1000.
The dates given in Burke's Irish Family Records are incorrect. Also apparently incorrect is the note in IB 29, 1 Apr 1887, 104, that 'Mr H. Dorman has been appointed county surveyor for Monaghan'.
J.H. Cole, Church and parish records of the united diocese of Cork, Cloyne , and Ross (Cork, 1903), 129 (B.O'D.).
Connaught Telegraph, 12 Mar 1887.
Building News 99, 26 Aug 1910, 284; other references to Dorman at the congress are In IB 52, 30 Apr 1919, 289-90.
Membership lists in Proceedings of the Association of Municipal & County Engineers.
Min.Proc.ICE 112 (1893), 207.
JRSAI 21 (1890-91), 336.
IB 43, 1 Jan 1901, 585.
1911 census of Ireland, www.census.nationalarchives.ie/ (last visited, Oct 2009); Thom's Official Directory 1915, 1136.
