Robert Jacomb-Hood

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For the financier and politician, see Robert Jacomb.
This British surname is barrelled, being made up of multiple names. It should be written as Jacomb-Hood, not Hood.

Robert Jacomb-Hood
MICE
A photograph of an old man with white hair and a white beard. He is sitting on a chair facing sideways to the viewer, and his gaze is not directly towards the viewer either. He is wearing a navy three-piece suit.
Jacomb-Hood photographed in 1881
Born25 January 1822
Riseley, Bedfordshire, England
Died10 May 1900(1900-05-10) (aged 78)
Royal Tunbridge Wells, England
Known forChief Engineer of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway
Spouses
Jane Littlewood
​
​
(m. 1852; died 1869)​
Elizabeth Thornton
​
​
(m. 1871; died 1875)​
Children9, including George Percy Jacomb-Hood and John Wykeham Jacomb-Hood
AwardsTelford Medal
Signature
A cursive signature that reads "R Jacomb Hood"

Robert Jacomb-Hood[a] MICE (25 January 1822 – 10 May 1900) was a British civil engineer who rose to prominence as the first Resident Engineer of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), a position he held from the company's amalgamation in 1846 until 1860. During this time, he was responsible for projects including London Victoria station, London Bridge station, and Crystal Palace railway station, as well as a large number of branch lines across the south of England.

Born to a working-class family in Bedfordshire, Jacomb-Hood's father inherited an estate from his cousin in 1833, drastically improving the financial situation of the family. Jacomb-Hood was removed from Christ's Hospital in favour of private tuition before attending the University of Cambridge to study Law. However, he quickly dropped out to become a railway engineer instead, rising through their ranks quickly under the guidance of George W. Buck. He was selected as the fist Resident Engineer of the LB&SCR in 1846, only five years after he entered the industry. The finances of the company were tumultuous, with some years seeing strong gains and others so poor that Jacomb-Hood narrowly escaped being fired. However, his career personal finances grew steadily and he was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1847.

After transitioning to practising privately in 1860, he began partnering with a variety of engineers and architects including Charles Driver, George Parker Bidder, and his cousin Wililam Jacomb. He also expanded his work outside of railway engineering, working on projects such as the National Gallery and the Portcreek Viaduct. However, the death of his first wife and the end of his joint practice with Jacomb motivated him to enter semi-retirement; as part of this, he switched his focus from designing and constructing projects in the UK to joining companies' boards of directors and taking up international opportunities. This included significant contributions to the Crystal Palace Company between 1869 and 1880, as well as the Alabama Great Southern Railroad which he helped to create and sat as a member of the board between 1877 and 1886.

In 1883 he returned to the LB&SCR as a member of the board; by this time, he was barely working and instead spending most of his time travelling the world. He slowly left the companies he had been a board member of; his last known attendance at a civil engineering project was in 1894, but he continued assisting the LB&SCR until his death in 1900 aged 78. Over his extensive six-decade career, he saw success not only as the designer and engineer of railway projects, but as the director and important figure of various companies across four continents. He also saw academic success, being awarded two of the Institution of Civil Engineers' accolades in 1850 and 1858 respectfully, the latter of which was for a paper that was considered pioneering in station design and railway engineering.

Early life

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Family

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A medieval church surrounded by a cemetery. There are trees in the right foreground and left background, and a blue sky
St Mary and All Saints Church in Great Stambridge, where Jacomb-Hood's parents married.

Jacomb-Hood was born on 25 January 1822 at The Lodge Farm in Riseley, Bedfordshire.[‡ 1] He was also baptised in Riseley,[‡ 2] with unpublished material from the Christ's Hospital school archives suggesting this was on 21 February 1822.[‡ 3] He was the first of his parents' nine children;[3]: 58  according to their marriage certificate, they had married on 29 March 1819 at St Mary And All Saints Church in Great Stambridge, Essex.[‡ 4]

Jacomb-Hood's mother was Susan Jacomb-Hood (née Kemp), the daughter of John Kemp of Broomhills in Rochford, Essex.[4][5] His mother's brother—George Tawke Kemp—owned the Beechhill estate, also situated in Rochford, and his son George was given the title Baron Rochdale on 14 February 1913.[6][7]

Jacomb-Hood's father was Robert Jacomb, who began his career as a yeoman farmer.[8] As of 1822, he was a tenant farmer on land belonging to John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford.[3]: 51  On the 1833 death of his cousin, the barrister William Hood,[9] Jacomb inherited Hood's estate at Bardon Hall in Bardon, Leicestershire;[9][10] this was because Hood was the last male member of his family. Jacomb had no link to the estate and his interest in its ownership was only because of the financial benefit.[10] However, this inheritance was on the condition that Jacomb took the surname of Hood, becoming Robert Jacomb-Hood,[9] because the estate had been in the Hood family since the 1620s.[8] Jacomb-Hood modified the estate by building a New Hall in 1835 and demolishing the Old Hall building around 1840,[10] which he had described in his memoirs as "too dilapidated for residence, and the situation was low, damp and unhealthy".[11] He was accepted to the Worshipful Company of Fan Makers—one of the 113 livery companies of the City of London[12]—on 9 January 1832.[‡ 3]

Education

[edit]

Jacomb-Hood's first education was by a private tutor in Dereham, Norfolk when he was aged seven.[3]: 51  He then entered Christ's Hospital, a public school[b] in West Sussex.[14] [3]: 51  Unpublished archive material stored by the school suggests that Jacomb-Hood's father applied for his place in December 1831, by which time he had three siblings. His father's income at the time of the application was reported to "not exceed £100 per annum",[‡ 3] which equates to a salary of below £11,470 in 2023.[15] Jacomb-Hood was admitted to the school on 13 January 1832, aged nine. His family did not pay for his education or any associated fees; instead, he was sponsored by George Green, the governor for donations at the school. Starting at the preparatory school in Hertford, Hertfordshire,[‡ 3] Jacomb-Hood then moved to the main school in Newgate Street, London in 1834.[3]: 51 [‡ 3]

According to the school archives, of the three departments at the school, Jacomb-Hood belonged to the Writing School, which was for children wanting to pursue financial or commercial work. There, he was considered best out of 258 students for penmanship on 25 November 1834,[‡ 3] for which he was awarded a golden pen, the school's equivalent of first prize.[3]: 51  As a result of his father's inheritance of Bardon Hall, he was removed from the school on 6 November 1835;[3]: 51 [‡ 3] he was signed out by a 'J A Kemp', who would have been on his mother's side of the family. None of his siblings attended the school.[‡ 3]

After leaving Christ's Hospital, Jacomb-Hood was educated by Reverend H. Richardson, who was the rector of Leire, Leicestershire. However, Jacomb-Hood's father was not happy with the quality of his tuition and moved him to Wood & Throwgood School in Totteridge, Hertfordshire in 1836. By this time, the family were living in Bardon Park and his father was undertaking renovation works. Between 1839 and 1840, Jacomb-Hood was educated in Hathern, Leicestershire, as a precursor to him studying at the University of Cambridge. At the same time, the family moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; in both locations, Jacomb-Hood witnessed railway construction; those were the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway in Cheltenham and the Midland Counties Railway in Hathern. In his diaries, he recalls visiting the sites with his friends, and that they served as an inspiration for his choice of career.[3]: 51–2 

Jacomb-Hood's father wanted him to pursue a career as a barrister, and had discouraged his son's interest in engineering; at first, Jacomb-Hood respected his father's wishes, choosing to study law.[3]: 51–2  He was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge on 25 May 1840 and he began his degree the same year.[16] He is listed in Alumni Cantabrigienses as a pensioner (full fee-paying student) and described to be of "of Bardon Park, Leics".[16] However, after what Alan A. Jackson describes as a "couple of unsuccessful terms", Jacomb-Hood dropped out of the University in April 1841,[3]: 52  instead choosing to become a railway engineer.[14][3]: 52 

Career

[edit]

1841–1846: Early career

[edit]

After dropping out of University, Jacomb-Hood scheduled an interview with civil engineer Charles Fox to join his company Fox & Henderson. However, his former classmate from his education in Hathern, Albert Pell, had been employed at the company; Pell warned Jacomb-Hood to avoid working as an engineer for Fox. He then tried to get a job from John Birkinshaw, who worked under Robert Stephenson on the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway; however, Birkinshaw was ill and thus unable to meet Jacomb-Hood, something which the latter described in his diaries as "fortunate".[3]: 52  Finally, he managed successfully to become the student of the railway engineer George W. Buck, who at the time was the Chief Engineer of the Manchester and Birmingham Railway (M&BR) alongside Robert Stephenson.[14][3]: 52 

Upon becoming a student of Buck, he was tasked to work under draftsman Charles Heard Wild to make the technical drawings for the railway for a period of nine months. In his diaries, Jacomb-Hood speaks of both Wild and Buck very highly, describing them as "'one of the cleverest draftsmen" and "a most excellent master" respectively.[3]: 52  He was then sent by Buck to Sandbach to work as the assistant to William Baker,[3]: 52  who was responsible for a stretch of what would become the Crewe–Manchester line near Holmes Chapel.[14] By the time the line reached Crewe in 1843, Buck had stopped working for the M&BR and was instead practicing privately in Manchester; he then employed Jacomb-Hood as his Chief Assistant.[14][3]: 52 

A photograph of a bridge over a road with cars and people on the road. The bridge is built with repeating patterns of red, black, and white.
The Salford Central railway bridges, which Jacomb-Hood engineered.

During his time as Chief Assistant to Buck, Jacomb-Hood was tasked with projects including the design and construction of the Salford Central bridges over New Bailey Road, replacing an older version.[14][3]: 52  In late 1843, Jacomb-Hood was employed by the M&BR again as an assistant to Baker, to work on the section of the railway between Macclesfield and Cheadle Hulme (now part of the Stafford–Manchester line).[14][3]: 52  He began working on the line on 25 December 1843, and carried on through the first few months of 1844.[3]: 52 

After he finished his work for the M&BR, he was then tasked with managing the parliamentary work of the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway,[3]: 52  before being promoted to Resident Engineer of the railway from 1 September 1844.[14][3]: 52–53  It is now known as the Altrincham Line, which forms part of Manchester Metrolink.[17] He kept this role for two years until 1846.[14] During his time as Resident Engineer he also worked with Baker on the Shropshire Union Canal and the Wilmslow & Knutsford Railway. However, he then turned down offers to work on the Leeds Northern Railway and to start a partnership with Baker, instead deciding to apply for the new role as Resident Engineer on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.[3]: 53 

1846–1850: Early LB&SCR work

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On 27 July 1846, the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway formed as an amalgamation of companies including the London and Brighton Railway and the London and Croydon Railway.[18] Earlier that year on 6 May, Jacomb-Hood had attended a meeting of the provisional board as a candidate for the company's Resident Engineer. The sixty-two applicants were reduced to a shortlist of three,[3]: 53  from which Jacomb-Hood was chosen and appointed from the company's creation.[18][3]: 53  He had a starting salary of £500,[3]: 53  equivalent to £61,000 in 2023,[15] for which he was responsible for the construction, maintenance, and planning of the lines, stations, and goods depots.[3]: 53 

A black and white photo of a medium-sized brick building as taken from across the street. A canopy extends from the first floor with a white sign reading "STEYNING STATION"
A photograph of Steyning railway station on the Steyning Line, taken on opening day in 1861.

In his first years at the company, his work mainly focussed on the completion of stations, managing contracts,[14] and the railway's new stations at London Bridge and Bricklayers Arms.[14][3]: 53  He also designed and oversaw the construction of many branch lines, such as the Cuckoo Line, the Seaford branch, and the Steyning Line.[14][3]: 53  This was combined with the slow expansion of the Brighton Main Line down to—and then along—the South Coast.[14][3]: 53  Jacomb-Hood was tasked with further expansion works during 1847, including the completion of the Epsom Downs Branch in order to serve the upcoming Epsom Derby,[3]: 53  which took place that year on 19 May.[19]

On 2 March 1847, Jacob-Hood was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE).[14] From May of the same year, Jacomb-Hood took in his brother George Jacomb-Hood as a pupil; the pair lived together in rented accommodation in Brighton.[3]: 53  His work, however, did not always involve construction; for example, he was also tasked with converting the Atmospheric Railway—which had originally been built by the London and Croydon Railway[20]—to steam running rather than by the use of pressure.[3]: 53  The conversion finished on 4 May.[20] The rate of construction led to his salary (excluding bonuses) being increased to £750—equivalent to £92,000 in 2023[15]—from 1 July 1847.[3]: 53 

The economic success of Jacomb-Hood and the LB&SCR did not last long; by October 1847, Jacomb-Hood was set to be fired—along with the entire of his staff—due to the railway company being unable to find the money to complete more construction work. He gave his resignation letter to the company on 3 January 1848, but it was overturned by a meeting of the board on 14 February as part of a wider investigation into the conduct and finances of the company. On 18 March, Leo Schuster—a board member—confirmed to Jacomb-Hood that he would be reappointed at the same salary, and his work was to be gradually resumed.[3]: 53 

On 10 January 1849, Jacomb-Hood was appointed as the engineer to the Portsmouth line, which was a joint project between the LB&SCR and the London and South Western Railway (LSWR). The same year he also began giving out the contracts for London Bridge station, which first opened on 2 August 1850. Earlier that year, on 2 April, Jacomb-Hood had presented his paper titled Description of a Vertical Lift Bridge erected over the Grand Surrey Canal[c] to the Institution of Civil Engineers; the paper details how he engineered the LB&SCR's swing bridge over the Grand Surrey Canal in London. The project, which ran between October 1848 and June 1849, had a total cost of £1300, which is equivalent to £165,000 in 2023.[15][‡ 5] The paper later won him a Council Premium of Books,[14] which he was awarded by the Institution of Civil Engineers on 7 November 1850.[3]: 54 

1850–1860: Expansion of the LB&SCR

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In the 1850s, the LB&SCR saw significant expansion and financial success.[14] Due to the financial success of the railway, Jacomb-Hood's pay continued to increase and from 1852 he received an annual bonus proportionate to the dividends of the company, and began investing. On 24 May 1852, Jacomb-Hood attended the first meeting of the Crystal Palace Board, the company responsible for the site in Sydenham, London onto which the The Crystal Palace would be relocated. The board decided that a railway should be incorporated into the site;[3]: 54  Jacomb-Hood was made responsible for the construction of this branch by the LB&SCR.[14][3]: 54  The same year, he also began the enlargement of London Bridge station and the construction of Lewes railway station, and the company moved into the new offices at the expanded London Bridge on 27 March 1854.[3]: 54–55  He was also tasked by the LB&SCR with the construction of branch lines such as the Arun Valley line and the Oxted line.[14]

In February 1854, Jacomb-Hood hired Guilford Lindsey Molesworth as his assistant;[3]: 55  Molesworth would later serve as the 41st President of the Institution of Civil Engineers from November 1904 to November 1905.[21] On 10 June 1850, Jacomb-Hood attended the opening of The Crystal Palace on its new site with his wife, having been responsible for the construction of the railway line serving it and later becoming a director on the board.[14][3]: 54  By 1855, Jacomb-Hood's salary had reached £1059,[3]: 55  equivalent to £125,000 in 2023.[15] In July of the same year, he also negotiated working privately on a new railway between Lewes and Uckfield (now part of the Wealden Line); he would start this work on 7 August 1858 and would open on 11 October of the same year.[3]: 56  The financial success of the LB&SCR—and that of Jacomb-Hood—continued through to the end of the 1850s; he was promised a salary of £1,200 from 1860, equivalent to £142,000 in 2023.[15] He also hired his younger brother John to work alongside him, tasking him with work in Portsmouth and Newcastle before finding him a job in Bombay, India (now Mumbai) in October 1858.[3]: 56 

Many difficulties arise from the practice of employing architects to design and execute the station works. If, therefore, the Engineer desires to do full credit to his employers, and to himself, he should in all cases design the station works, either engaging assistants, or working conjointly with an architect, to furnish the necessary amount of architectural decoration, a talent for which is not always combined with constructive ability, or the faculty of judicious arrangement.[22][‡ 6]

Robert Jacomb-Hood, The Arrangement and Construction of Railway Stations (1858)

On 27 April 1858, Jacomb-Hood submitted a paper to the Institution of Civil Engineers titled The Arrangement and Construction of Railway Stations.[22][‡ 6] In this paper, Jacomb-Hood argued that despite the average British railway engineer having little architectural training, the design of stations should nonetheless be their professional responsibility. He proposed the concept of 'judicious arrangement'; that is, that the functionality and logistics of a station was more important to its design than architectural grandeur. His assertion—based on this idea—that railway engineers should design their own stations, was highly innovative and unusual for the time.[22] On 14 December 1858, he was awarded a Telford Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineering for his work on the paper.[2][3]: 56 

A large and tall Victorian building with a canopy extending from the first floor which reads "London Victoria Station" on its left hand side. A road curves around to serve the front of the building and there is a bus on the road and people on the pavement.
The façade of the LB&SCR half of London Victoria railway station; the building was designed by Jacomb-Hood.

One of Jacomb-Hood's most prominent projects was the construction of London Victoria railway station, which was to be the shared London terminus of the LB&SCR and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LC&DR). The station was built from two seemingly-unconnected buildings and financed equally by both railway companies.[23] Jacomb-Hood was responsible for the design of the LB&SCR's half of the station; by applying his principle of judicious arrangement to the roof—built with a single truss design—the cost of the roof was reduced to £17 per 100 square feet (9.3 m2)—£2,000 in 2023[15]—at a cost only two-thirds as expensive as the LC&DR's roof on the other side.[24] The station opened to passengers on 1 October 1860;[25] the roof does not survive today.[24]

1860–1869: Full-time private practice

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Alan A Jackson describes 1860 as a "milestone year" for Jacomb-Hood;[3]: 57  on 29 September, Jacomb-Hood resigned as Resident Engineer due to the pressure of managing the parliamentary side of railway engineering.[14][3]: 57 [d] Instead, he chose to start practising privately as a civil engineer in Westminster, London, but agreed to work on his ongoing projects until 31 December 1860 in return for a fee of £3,500[3]: 57  (equivalent to £415,000 in 2023).[15] During his time in private practice, Jacomb-Hood worked on The Arun Valley line, South London line, and Cranleigh line among others.[14] From 1860 to 1863, he worked with the British architect Charles Driver on projects including the Dorking to Leatherhead line, and Portsmouth & Southsea and Tunbridge Wells railway stations.[1] Having been employed by his brother in various ways (likely as a result of nepotism), George Jacomb-Hood hosted a farewell party on 24 November 1863 before leaving the country to engineer the Scinde Railway in India, ending his pupilage.[3]: 58 

In his early years of practising privately, Jacomb-Hood also collaborated with the engineer George Parker Bidder on the construction of various projects.[14][3]: 57  Despite the fact that Jacomb-Hood had left direct employment of the LB&SCR only a few years prior, the pair assumed all of the company's engineering works contractually from November 1863, splitting their profits evenly.[3]: 58  On 29 July 1864, the Horsham, Leatherhead and Dorking Railway was absorbed by the LB&SCR; the pair then finished the construction of the line together before it opened on 1 May 1867.[28] The pair also worked on the Portsmouth line between Peckham Rye and Sutton railway stations;[3]: 57  the works on the section had finished by June 1867.[29] They also worked on plans for the East London Railway (now partially the East London line) and the Axminster and Lyme Regis Railway, among many others.[14]

A lithograph with only grey and cream colours. It features a man wearing a three-piece suit and bow tie leaning to his left; his left hand is on a chair and his right tucked into his blazer.
1865 lithograph of Jacomb-Hood

In 1865, a portrait of Jacomb-Hood was made by the lithographer George B. Black; it is part of the National Portrait Gallery's collection.[30] On 3 July of the same year, Jacomb-Hood entered into a partnership with his cousin and former student William Jacomb;[14][3]: 58  the pair practised in Little George Street in the City of Westminster, and branded their partnership as 'Jacomb and Hood'.[31] The agreement between them was that Jacomb would provide one third of the necessary capital in return for one third of the profits.[3]: 58  Together, they worked on projects across the United Kingdom, for example the Chichester and Midhurst Railway, which formed part of the Midhurst Railways, and the Bexleyheath line.[14]

In December 1865, Jacomb-Hood travelled to Edinburgh with the intention of entering the competition to design Edinburgh Waverley railway station.[3]: 58  However, the station redesign was instead carried out by James Bell, the Chief Engineer of the North British Railway, based on a design for an extension he submitted in 1869. Due to the station remaining open during construction, these changes were not fully implemented until the 1870s.[32]

On 28 April 1866, a bridge being built in Sutton, London as part of Jacomb-Hood's work collapsed, killing six men. On 29 May of the same year, the LB&SCR stopped all its work due to the railway company being in financial difficulties, and Jacomb-Hood was instructed to withdraw or suspend all of the company's parliamentary proposals. However, he was still able to continue his work with the South Eastern Railway and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, as well as assisting negotiations between the Great Northern Railway and the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway.[3]: 58  The financial situation of the LB&SCR had not improved by 1867, and the company descended into chaos with the appointment of an entirely new board of directors; this significantly jeopardised the company's abilities to pass legislation and continue constructing lines.[3]: 59 

In the late 1860s Jacomb-Hood also engaged in civil engineering works not directly related to the railways;[14] in 1867, he helped to complete the ironwork on the roof of the National Gallery building in London alongside his partner William Jacomb.[14][3]: 59  The pair were then tasked by the War Office (now the Ministry of Defence[33]) in 1868 to plan repairs to the Portcreek Viaduct near Portsmouth, Hampshire; the works were then carried out during the following year.[14][3]: 59–60  In December 1868, Jacomb-Hood also helped with the inspection of the harbour at St Just in Penwith, Cornwall.[3]: 59 

In May 1869, Jacomb-Hood was given the title of Consulting Engineer at the LB&SCR in order for him to assist his successor, Frederick Banister, in his work; Jacomb-Hood then worked on once again reorganising the engineering department at the railway. In December 1869, William Jacomb was hired as the Resident Engineer of the London and South Western Railway, because of which their partnership was dissolved on 31 December 1869 by mutual consent;[31][3]: 60  he would hold this position from the start of 1870 until 1887.[14][34] Combined with the death of his wife the same year (see § Personal life), this motivated Jacomb-Hood to end full time practice and enter semi-retirement, moving to a smaller office in Westminster.[3]: 60 

1869–1883: Semi-retirement

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A black and white photo of a massive glass building with a tower to the right and fountains in front. Below, in cursive script, is a caption that reads "Centre transept & north tower from South Wing"
The Crystal Palace in 1854

To make up for the subsequent loss of income, he accepted an invite to become a director of the Crystal Palace Company on 30 December 1869;[14][3]: 60  of its eight original board members, two were also board members of the LB&SCR.[35][e] He also took an active part in his role at the Crystal Palace Company; in May 1870 he travelled to continental Europe in advance of the creation of the Crystal Palace Aquarium,[3]: 60  which he would become heavily involved in the construction and management thereof.[14] The project, which was led by the aquarist William Alford Lloyd,[36] involved building the first stand-alone aquarium outside of a zoo and by far the largest aquarium in the British Isles when it opened in 1871.[37] However, it did not see financial success.[36]

On 1 November 1870, Jacomb-Hood joined the board of the Anglo-Maltese Hydraulic Dock Company.[14][3]: 60  Based in Victoria Street, London, they were constructing a dock in Malta which used a hydraulic system to lift boats out of the water and into a dry dock. The dock was finished in 1873 at a cost of £143,000,[38] which is equivalent to £16,005,000 in 2023,[15] and Jacomb-Hood was sent to Malta to assist in the company's affairs in July 1872.[14][3]: 60  He left the board in May 1877.[3]: 61 

A map of the Atlantic ocean, with the Americas on the left and Eurasia on the right. A red path connects twelve numbered blue dots as described in the image caption.
Jacomb-Hood's voyage to Argentina in 1872:[3]: 60 [f]
  1. London, UK
  2. Dover, UK
  3. Calais, France
  4. Paris, France
  5. Lisbon, Portugal
  6. Dakar, Senegal
  7. Salvador, Brazil
  8. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  9. Buenos Aires, Argentina
  10. Montevideo, Uruguay
  11. Funchal, Portugal
  12. Southampton, UK

The Chairman of the LB&SCR, Samuel Laing, commissioned Jacomb-Hood to travel to Argentina and negotiate the purchase of the Central Northern Railway between Córdoba and Tucumán.[14][39] Jacomb-Hood incorporated the visit into a wider holiday of his between January and May 1872, which included visits to southeast Europe, West Africa, and the Atlantic coast of South America (see image for full route). He arrived back in the United Kingdom at Southampton on 13 June. Upon his return, he gave up his last Westminster office, which closed on 8 July 1872.[3]: 61  The railway was eventually bought by the British-owned Córdoba Central Railway in 1887.[39]

A bordered map on cream paper captioned "MAP OF THE / QUEEN & CRESCENT / ROUTE." On the map is a dense network of railway lines with a y-shaped boldened line running from the bottom-left to top right
An 1891 map of the Alabama and Great Southern Railway Company; Jacomb-Hood was instrumental in its creation.

In 1877, he was commissioned by Emile Erlanger & Co. to assist in their decision whether or not to purchase the Alabama and Chattanooga Railway. He travelled to the United States with Sir Philip Rose, 1st Baronet in order to inspect the line and write a report on it.[14][3]: 61 It was as a result of this report that the Alabama Great Southern Railway Company was formed in 1877,[14] and he served as a director of the company from September 1877 until 1886, helping in its setup alongside Charles Schiff.[14][3]: 61  In 1879, he resigned as a board member of the Crystal Palace Company; the same year, he was commissioned for a second time by Emile Erlanger & Co., this time to assist with the company's undertakings in the West Indies and the United States.[14]

In 1876, the Thames Haven Petroleum Storage Company had begun building warehouses to store barrels of petroleum oil from the Thameshaven port. It began operating in 1880,[40] with Jacomb-Hood having been a director since November 1877;[3]: 61  it maintained a monopoly on the import of petroleum into London until 1900.[40] Charles Schiff had also convinced Jacomb-Hood to join the board of the New Gas Company in September 1878.[3]: 61 

In October 1879, he collaborated once again with the same people who had commissioned the Wealden Line between Lewes and Uckfield; this time, he was asked to help plan a restart of the never-completed Ouse Valley Railway.[3]: 61  The scheme never came to light and no work has been undertaken on the line since February 1869, when the LB&SCR made an agreement with the South Eastern Railway that rendered the line useless.[41] In November 1879, there were mass resignations among the board of directors at the Crystal Palace Company, including the Chairman, Deputy Chairman, and Jacomb-Hood;[42][43][3]: 61  the following March he also left the board of the Thames Haven Petroleum Storage Co. In May 1880, he joined the board of the Sydney and Louisburg Railway;[14][3]: 61  situated in Nova Scotia, Canada, the company's main role was to carry coal mined by the Dominion Coal Company, but also carried passengers. The only extant remains of the railway are the station building in Louisbourg.[44]

In May 1881, Jacomb-Hood submitted an entry to the design competition for Liverpool Exchange railway station, something he had been working on since December of the previous year.[3]: 61  On 3 August 1881, it was announced that John West had won the competition out of forty-three entrants, with the first part of the new station opening on 23 February 1888.[45] He also served as a director of the Assam Railways and Trading Company between August 1881 and February 1882,[14][3]: 61  a British company that later became part of the Indian Dibru–Sadiya Railway. It was commissioned to build a line in modern-day Assam on 16 July 1883, which eventually closed on 12 December 2011.[46]

1883–1900: Later work and death

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A black and white photograph of a locomotive and its coal-wagon facing rightwards at a station platform. On the wheel casing reads "JACOMB HOOD".
LB&SCR B1 class locomotive number 192, named in honour of Jacomb-Hood

On 7 March 1883, Jacomb-Hood was invited to join the LB&SCR's board of directors as a replacement for the retiring Sir Arthur Otway;[3]: 62  in the seventeen years between his appointment to the board and his death, he spent most of his time working on the LB&SCR's business.[14] His early work as a director involved the restructuring of the engineering department at the railway and assisting on individual projects such as Newhaven Harbour railway station.[3]: 63 

William Jacomb—the cousin of former partner of Jacomb-Hood—died suddenly on 26 May 1887; Jacomb-Hood was present at his funeral on 31 May the same year, which took place at Wimbledon Cemetery.[3]: 62  He gave up the seats he held on the boards of the Alabama Great Southern Railway Company and the Sydney and Louisburg Railway in 1886, ending his involvement in engineering in the Americas that he had held since 1872.[3]: 61–62  Beginning in 1887, Jacomb-Hood also started attending the International Railway Congress; he was present at Milan in September 1887, Paris in September 1889, Brighton in October 1891 (of particular significance as the southern terminus of the LB&SCR), and Paris in June 1893.[3]: 62–63 

A colour painting of a mostly bald man leaning against a desk. He is holding a cane in his left hand and has his right hand on his hip. He is wearing a long coat and red jumper and looks stern and directly forward.
Portrait of an Elderly Gentleman is believed to depict Robert Jacomb-Hood and was painted by his son George.

The LB&SCR dedicated one of their B1 class locomotives (known as "Gladstones") to Jacomb-Hood; number 192, named "Jacomb-Hood",[47][48] was an 0-4-2 locomotive that entered service in November 1888. The name was removed c. 1906 and the locomotive left service in December 1927.[47] The final year of his life in which he kept known diaries was 1894, by which point he was barely working and instead spent most of his time on holidays around the UK and Europe;[3]: 63  he had only first visited mainland Europe on 29 May 1849, showing the extent of his financial success.[3]: 53  He was present at the opening of the Tower Bridge in London on 9 July 1894, the last recorded association of his with a civil engineering project during his lifetime.[3]: 63 

The c. 1895 painting Portrait of an Elderly Gentleman by George Percy Jacomb-Hood is believed to be a depiction of Robert Jacomb-Hood, his father. It is currently held in the archives of the National Railway Museum,[49] having been "obtained as a result of a direct claim of redundant material from the nationalised railway in 1977".[50] Little is known about the last six years of Jacomb-Hood's life beyond his obituary.[3]: 63 

Jacomb-Hood died suddenly in Tunbridge Wells on 10 May 1900, aged 78. At the time, he was still working for the LB&SCR, and was also one of the longest serving members of the Institution of Civil Engineers, having been elected over 53 years before his death.[14] His grave is inscribed with 2 Timothy 4:7 as translated in the King James Version: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith".[51][‡ 7] His obituary—published by the Institution of Civil Engineers—praised his dedication to the LB&SCR, saying that "he spared no pains to place at their service that keen intellect, fine memory and tactful discrimination for which he will be long remembered".[14]

Personal life

[edit]
A profile view of a young man with his head turned to face the viewer. He is wearing a blazer and bow tie and has short cropped hair and a moustache. It is a colour oil painting.
A self-portrait of Jacomb-Hood's son George

On 25 November 1851,[52] Jacomb-Hood married Jane Stothard Littlewood. She was the daughter of George Littlewood, who was a local printer.[53] The pair had met earlier the same year, because she was the governess of his cousin's children.[3]: 54 According to their marriage certificate, they were married at St George's in the parish of Bloomsbury in Middlesex (now London). He is described as a civil engineer and his father a "gentleman"; neither had been previously married.[‡ 8]

Jacomb-Hood had nine children with his first wife, of whom two died in infancy; their first child Katie (who later took the surname Dale by marriage) was born on 27 April 1853.[3]: 54  Their fourth child, George Percy Jacomb-Hood,[8] was a successful painter and illustrator, and his work included depictions of his father.[49][53] His second son, John Wykeham Jacomb-Hood, also became a civil engineer; his career included working as the Chief Engineer of the London and South Western Railway and being elected to the Institution of Civil Engineers like his father.[54]

On the death of his father on 9 July 1857,[55] Jacomb-Hood inherited the family seat at Bardon Hall in Bardon, Leicestershire. On 13 June 1864,[3]: 58  he sold the whole estate to William Percy Herrick of Beaumanor Hall for £40,000,[10][56] equivalent to £4,970,000 in 2023.[15] However, the conditions of his inheritance was that this money would be split equally among him and his siblings.[3]: 58  He was the second and last member of his family to own the estate.[4][56]

On 27 November 1869, Jacomb-Hood's wife Jane, to whom he had been married for 17 years, died of "dropsical debility",[3]: 60  which refers to illness caused by an oedema, a fluid-filled swelling beneath the skin.[57] On 12 August 1870, Jacomb-Hood became engaged again to Elizabeth Thornton and on 21 February 1871 they married at St George's, Hanover Square,[3]: 60  in the eponymous parish in Middlesex (now London). His marriage certificate once again listed him as a civil engineer; however, his now-dead father was listed as an "esquire" rather than simply a "gentleman". Owing to the death of his former wife, he is described as a "widower"; his wife was listed as a spinster, meaning that she had not been married previously.[‡ 9] Elizabeth died suddenly in 1875 from cancer;[3]: 61  according to the inscription on her grave, she died on 10 January aged 46.[‡ 10] He did not marry again, remaining a widower for the last twenty-five years of his life.[3]: 61 

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ His name is sometimes left unhyphenated as Robert Jacomb Hood.[1][2]
  2. ^ A public school is a type of fee-charging private school,[13] but Jacomb-Hood did not pay any of his own tuition due to the nature of Christ's Hospital.[‡ 3]
  3. ^ The full title was Description of a Vertical Lift Bridge, erected over the Grand Surrey Canal, on the line of the Thames Junction Branch of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.[‡ 5]
  4. ^ In order to purchase the land and raise the capital for a railway project, an act known as a private act had to be passed through the Parliament of the United Kingdom.[26] These were incredibly time consuming and expensive;[26][27] for example, Isambard Kingdom Brunel appeared before parliamentary committees 233 times in his career.[27]
  5. ^ These were Samuel Laing and Leo Schuster.[35]
  6. ^ All countries listed are the modern day jurisdictions for the locations, not necessarily those at the time. The locations (blue dots) are factual, but the path (red line) is only indicative of the rough route Jacomb-Hood would have taken.

References

[edit]

Primary sources

[edit]

In the text, these references are preceded by a double dagger (‡)

  1. ^ Coates, John (19 July 1822). "Dr Williams' Library Registry, Birth Certificates, 1820–1824". General Register Office. Retrieved 8 July 2025 – via Ancestry.
  2. ^ "Robert Jacomb in the England & Wales, Christening Index, 1530-1980". Retrieved 8 August 2025 – via Ancestry.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Jones, Clifford (ed.). Robert Jacomb-Hood. Christ's Hospital School London Archives. Accessed 25 June 2025.
  4. ^ "Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754–1937". Essex Record Office. 1819. Retrieved 8 July 2025 – via Ancestry.
  5. ^ a b Jacomb-Hood, Robert (1850). "Description of a Vertical Lift Bridge, Erected Over the Grand Surrey Canal, on the Line of the Thames Junction Branch of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway". Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. 9 (1850): 303–309. doi:10.1680/imotp.1850.24166. eISSN 1753-7843 – via ICE Virtual Library.
  6. ^ a b Jacomb-Hood, Robert (27 April 1858). "On the Arrangement and Construction of Railway Stations". Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. 17 (1858): 449–481. doi:10.1680/imotp.1858.23737. ISSN 1753-7843 – via ICE Virtual Library.
  7. ^ "Robert Jacomb Hood". Find a Grave Index, 1300s–present. Retrieved 9 August 2025 – via Ancestry.
  8. ^ "London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1940". 25 November 1851. Retrieved 12 August 2025 – via Ancestry.
  9. ^ "Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1935". 21 February 1871 – via Ancestry.
  10. ^ "Elizabeth Jacomb-Hood". Find a Grave Index, 1300s–present. Retrieved 9 August 2025 – via Ancestry.

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