Engineer and county surveyor for Co. Monaghan, 1854-1855, and Co. Waterford, 1855-1877. Charles Tarrant, a son of CHARLES TARRANT [2] CHARLES TARRANT [2] , was born in Dublin, in 1815 and educated near Dublin by a family connection named Crawford. He was apprenticed to his father, who was engineer to the Royal Canal Company, and became his assistant. He then went to Scotland to assist a Mr Henry - probably DAVID JOSEPH HENRY - DAVID JOSEPH HENRY - on the construction of the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway. On his return to Ireland, he appears to have worked on the engineering staff of Dublin Corporation. A drawing by him for two houses in Nassau Street dated 1842, is among the Wide Streets Commissioners maps, and he is described as 'city engineeer' and engineer to the Pipe Water Establishment in the directories from 1844 to 1847. He then became acting engineer on the Waterford & Kilkenny railway under WILLIAM SCARTH MOORSOM WILLIAM SCARTH MOORSOM , based in Kilkenny. After the completion of the line as far as Thomastown in 1850, he went to America to work on the Susquehanna & Reading railway, 'where he,' according to his obituary in the Minutes of Proceedings of the Insitution of Civil Engineers, 'during some years, pushed on the works vigorously, employing vast numbers of both German and Irish navvies'. The climate did not suit his family, however, and he returned to Ireland.
In September 1854, having passed the county surveyorship examination in 1851, Tarrant was appointed county surveyor for Monaghan. Six months later, in March 1855, he was transferred to Co. Waterford. He was also appointed to the position of surveyor to the Grand Jury of the city of Waterford. He held the Co. Waterford surveyorship for the rest of his life. His obituary refers to his architectural works in the district but identifies only one of them, the amalgamated City & County Gaol (1860). During his years in Waterford he was resident engineer for the Waterford & Tramore and Waterford & Kilkenny (later Waterford & Central Ireland) railways, and in the early 1870s he was appointed engineer to the Waterford, Dungarvan & Lismore railway, jointly with WELLINGTON PURDON WELLINGTON PURDON . Shortly before his death, he was commissioned jointly with WILLIAM FORSYTH [2] WILLIAM FORSYTH [2] and SAMUEL KIRKBY SAMUEL KIRKBY to report on Youghal Bridge; his plans for a new bridge were approved by the Grand Juries of Cork and Waterford. He died before the plans could be realized, and the bridge was built instead to designs by Kirkby.
Already suffering from heart disease 'of long standing', Tarrant died in Tramore on 29 July 1877 as the result of pneumonia brought on by getting wet on a yachting trip two days earlier. He was buried in the graveyard of Christ Church, Tramore, Co. Waterford. He had married Jane Hodgson (d.1871), and had at least one daughter, Fanny (1838-1877).
ICEI: elected member, 1845; council member, 1857-59, 1862; vice-president, 1860-1861
Inst.CE: elected member, 5 December 1865.
RIA: elected member, 1848.
RIAI: application for membership under consideration, 1863, but does not appear on list of members for 1866.
RSAI: founding member, 1849.
Addresses: 10 Royal Canal Terrace, 1835-36; 14 Old Dominick Street, 1837; 2 Mountjoy Street, 1844 (with George Tarrant); 32 Portland Street North, 1847 (with George Tarrant); 5 Russell Street, 1848.
Home: Swiss Cottage, Waterford, 1859; Belvedere Terrace, Tramore, at time of death.
References
All information in this entry not otherwise accounted for is from the obituary of Tarrant in Min.Proc.Inst.CE 52 (1877-78, Pt. II), 280-281, Sarah Bendell, ed., Dictionary of Land Surveyors and Local Map-Makers of Great Britain and Ireland 1530-1850 (2nd edition, 1997), II, 501, and from Brendan O'Donoghue, The Irish County Surveyors 1834-1944 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007), 306-309, which gives the fullest account of Tarrant's career.
IAA, Edward McParland files (Acc.2008/44), citing WSC maps, PRO 11. Belfast News-Letter, 1 Jan 1839; www.familysearch.org (2008). Lists of office bearers and members in TICEI. IB 12, 15 Aug 1870, 197. RIAI council meeting minutes, 8 May 1863, 6. From Wilson's, Pettigrew & Oulton's and Thom's directories unless otherwise stated. JRSAI 5 (1858-59), list of members.
