Engineer. George Willoughby Hemans was born in St Asaph, North Wales, on 27 August 1814, the son of Captain Alfred Hemans and his wife, the well-known poet Felicia Hemans, whose paternal grandfather, George Browne, came from Passage, Co. Cork. After passing three years at the Military College at Sorèze in France, Hemans was placed under the guardianship of his uncle Lt. Col. George Baxter Browne, a Dublin magistrate and one of the Commissioners of Police in Ireland. After working on the Ordnance Survey, Hemans became a pupil of Sir JOHN MACNEILL JOHN MACNEILL in London. As such he worked on several Irish and Scottish lines of railway. After he had completed his pupilage, Macneill appointed him Resident Engineer in charge of the Dublin end of the Dublin & Drogheda Railway. Hemans constructed the first two iron lattice bridges in Ireland on this line. After the line had been opened Hemans was placed in charge of a division of the new Great Southern and Western Railway between Dublin and Cork. Subsquently Macneill appointed him District Engineer for a fifty-mile stretch of the line. In August 1845 the directors of the Midland Great Western Railway invited Hemans to take charge of their proposed new line to Mullingar and Longford. The line to Mullingar was opened on 2 October 1848 but stopped there for lack of funds. However, in May 1849, as a famine relief measure, the Government loaned the company half a million pounds to construct a line between Athlone and Galway, while the company undertook to finance the line betweeen Mullingar and Athlone. It was stipulated that the whole line must be finished by the end of 1851. In the latter part of 1850 the directors, on the recommendation of Hemans, secured the services of WILLIAM DARGAN WILLIAM DARGAN as contractor for the works. The whole line from Mullingar to Galway was completed in August 1851, five months before schedule and at a considerably lower cost than the estimate.
After the completion of the Mullingar-Galway line, Hemans continued as engineer to the Midland Great Western railway until 1865. He also became chief dngineer of the Waterford & Limerick railway, a post which he likewise held until 1865. During the 1860s he was, in addition, engineer to the following lines: Athenry & Ennis Junction; Athenry & Tuam; Dublin & Baltinglass; Enniskillen, Bundoran & Sligo; Inniskeen-Carrickmacross; Kilkenny Junction; Kilrush & Kilkee (with WILLIAM GALWEY WILLIAM GALWEY ); Limerick & Kilkenny; Newry & Armagh; Newry & Greenore; Newry & Warrenpoint; Portadown, Dungannon & Omagh Junction. He constructed more railways in Ireland than any other engineer of his time, employing RICHARD HASSARD RICHARD HASSARD as his chief assistant for several years. In 1861 he prepared a report for the Duke of Leinster and E.M. O'Ferrall, M.P., containing a proposal for a junction of the Midland Great Western and Great Southern Railways with a cattle depot at the seventh lock on the Royal Canal. He was also involved in the construction of an embankment as the first stage of the reclamation of the River Fergus navigation. The sewage system of Dublin seems to have been a persisting concern of his.
Hemans moved to London in 1854. In 1870 he was appointed engineer-in-chief to the government of the province of Canterbury, New Zealand, and subsequently to the government of New Zealand. In September 1872 he had a paralytic attack while he was staying in Wales which permanently deprived him of the power to speak or write, although his brain remained active and clear. He died on 29 December 1885. He is described in his obituary as 'slightly below the middle height, possessed of a well-built dapper form, betokening great activity, and with a handsome winning face, and most pleasant manners'. His sense of honour was 'almost too keen for the present day'.
Besides Richard Hassard, Hemans's pupils and assistants included CHARLES ROBERT ATKINSON CHARLES ROBERT ATKINSON , JAMES AUSTEN DICKINSON JAMES AUSTEN DICKINSON , DAVID REID EDGEWORTH DAVID REID EDGEWORTH , TRAVERS HARTLEY FALKINER TRAVERS HARTLEY FALKINER , SAMUEL GORDON FRASER SAMUEL GORDON FRASER , CHARLES GEORGE NAPIER CHARLES GEORGE NAPIER , CUTHBERT KNIGHTLEY ORLEBAR CUTHBERT KNIGHTLEY ORLEBAR and JOHN CHALONER SMITH. JOHN CHALONER SMITH.
Inst. CE: elected associate, 2 May 1837; transferred to graduate, 2 May 1838; member, 18 May 1845; member of council, 1856; vice-president.
ICEI: elected member, 1845; council member 1846-1849,1860-61,1885; vice-president, 1850-1856; president, 1857-1859; hon. member, 1 December 1881.
RIA: member, 1840-1852.
Royal Zoological Society: council member, 1850-1853.
Addresses: Work: 13 Seville Place, 1844; 52 Sackville Street Upper, 1846; 53 Sackville Street Upper, 1847-1848; 10 Rutland Square East, 1850-57; 46 Sackville Street Upper, 1858-63; 13 Queen Street, Westminster, 1863,and/or 46 Queen's Square, London, 1863; Westminster Chambers, London, 1870.
Home: 3 Rutland Square East, 1847-49.
See WORKS and BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY (for Irish subjects only).
References
All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from the obituary of Hemans in Min.Proc.Inst.CE 85 (1886), 394-399, and the brief notice of his death in TICEI 17 (1886), report of Council, 1-2.
B 3, 11 Oct 1845, supplement p.4, says he was the eldest son, the obituary in TICEI 17 says the youngest.
According to Pettigrew & Oulton's Dublin Almanac Hemans had taken up this post by 1842.
Jones transcripts from Thom's directories sub Midland Great Western Railway.
Jones transcripts from Thom's Directories, sub Waterford and Limerick Railway.
DB 3, 1 Feb 1861, 422; see also DB 5, 1 Oct 1863, 15.
DB 5, 1 Apr 1863, 63.
See DB 7, 1 Feb 1865, ? (footnote), and B 28, 22 Oct 1870, 850.
From lists of officers and membrs in TICEI unless otherwise stated.
TICEI 13 (1879-81), ?.
Jones transcripts from Thom's directories, sub Royal Irish Academy.
Jones transcripts from Thom's directories, sub Royal Zoological Society.
From Thom's and Post Office Directories, and Jones's transcripts from lists of engineers in classified section of Thom's Directoies unless otherwise stated.
APSD list of subscribers, 1863.
IB 12, 15 Aug 1870, 197.