Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Baker, Benjamin
BAKER, SIR BENJAMIN (1840–1907), civil engineer, born at Keyford, Frome, Somerset, on 31 March 1840, was son of Benjamin Baker and Sarah Hollis. His father, a native of county Carlow, became principal assistant at ironworks at Tondu, Glamorgan. After being educated at Cheltenham grammar school, Baker was for four years (1856-60) apprentice to H. H. Price, of the Neath Abbey ironworks. Coming to London in 1860, he served as assistant to W. Wilson on the construction of the Grosvenor Road railway bridge and Victoria station. In 1861 he joined the permanent staff of (Sir) John Fowler [q. v. Suppl. I], became his partner in 1875, and was associated with him until Fowler's death in 1898. As a consulting engineer he rapidly gained the highest reputation for skill and sagacity, and was consulted by the home and Egyptian governments, by the colonies, and by municipal and other corporations. The credit of the design and execution of the great constructional engineering achievements with which Baker's name is associated was necessarily shared by him with Fowler and many other colleagues, but Baker's judgment and resource were highly important factors in the success of these undertakings.
Baker early engaged on the underground communications of London. As assistant to Fowler, he was at the outset from 1861 employed on the construction of the Metropolitan (Inner Circle) railway and the St. John's Wood extension. In 1869 he became Fowler's chief assistant in the construction of the District railway from Westminster to the City. In a paper on 'The Actual Lateral Pressure of Earthwork,' for which he received in 1881 the George Stephenson medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers, he discussed some fruits of this experience (Proc. Inst. C. E. lxv. 140), and described the work itself in 1885 (ib. Ixxxi. 1). Subsequently Fowler and Baker acted as consulting engineers for the first 'tube' railway (the City and South London line, opened in 1890), and with J. H. Greathead were the joint engineers for the Central London (tube) railway, opened in 1900. In the construction of this line Baker carried out the plan suggested by him five-and-twenty years earlier, of making the line dip down between the stations in order to reduce the required tractive effort (see his articles on urban railways in Engineering, xvii. 1 et seq.). After Greathead's death in 1896 Baker also acted as joint engineer with Mr. W. R. Galbraith for the Baker Street and Waterloo (tube) railway.
From the early years of his career Baker studied deeply the theory of construction and the resistance of materials. For 'Engineering' he wrote a series of articles on 'Long Span Bridges' in 1867, and another, 'On the Strength of Beams, Columns, and Arches,' in 1868. Both series were published in book form, the first in 1867 (2nd edit. 1873) and the second in 1870. A third series, 'On the Strength of Brickwork,' was written in 1872. In the work on long span bridges he reached the conclusion that the maximum possible span would necessitate the adoption of cantilevers supporting an independent girder the system adopted later for the Forth bridge. To his early training in the Neath Abbey ironworks he owed the foundation of his thorough knowledge of the properties and strength of metals, on which he wrote many masterly papers (cf . 'Railway Springs,' Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Ixvi. 238 ; 'Steel for Tires and Axles,' ibid. lxvii. 353, and 'The Working Stress of Iron and Steel,' Trans. Am. Soc. Mech. Eng. viii. 157). Baker's special equipment thus enabled him to play a foremost part in association with Fowler in the designing of the Forth bridge on cantilever principles. This great work, begun in 1883, was completed in 1890, and Baker's services were rewarded by the honour of K.C.M.G. (17 April 1890) and the Prix Poncelet of the Institute of France.
From 1869 Baker was also associated with Fowler in investigating and advising upon engineering projects in Egypt. One of these was for a railway between Wady Haifa and Shendy and a ship incline at Assuan, and another (about 1875) was a project for a sweet-water canal between Alexandria and Cairo, which was intended to be used for both irrigation and navigation but was not carried out. Thenceforward Baker played a prominent part in the engineering work which has promoted the material development of the country. He was consulted by the Egyptian government on various occasions as to the repair of the Delta barrage (see Sir Hanbury Brown's paper in Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. clviii. 1); and when, after several years' investigation, schemes were prepared by Sir William Willcocks (Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection for Egypt, Cairo, 1894) for the storage of the waters of the Nile for irrigation purposes, a commission appointed by Lord Cromer, of which Baker was a member, approved the project for a reservoir at Assuan and chose a site for the dam. To meet the objection of one of the commissioners, Mr. Boule, to the partial submergence by this plan of the temples at Philae, the height of the proposed dam was reduced from 85 to 65 feet. The work, for which Baker was consulting engineer. was commenced in 1898 and was completed in 1902, when Baker was made K.C.B. and received the order of the Medjidieh. The dam is 6400 feet in length, 1800 feet of it being solid and the other 4600 feet pierced by 180 sluice-openings at different levels, which can be closed by means of iron sluices working on free rollers on the Stoney principle (cf. Maurice Fitzmaurice's description in Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. clii. 71). For a subsidiary dam which was built at the same time at Assyut, below Assuan, Baker was also consulting engineer. When the contractors, Messrs. Aird, had this work well in hand, with a large part of their contract time to run, Baker, realising the advantages of early completion of the dam, advised the Egyptian government to cancel the contract and to instruct the contractors to finish the work at the earliest possible moment, regardless of cost, leaving the question of contractors' profit to be settled by him. His advice was followed, the work was completed a year before the contract time, and the gain to the country from the extra year's supply of water was estimated to be 600,000l. (G. H. Stephens, 'The Barrage across the Nile at Assyut,' Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. clviii. 26). The vast benefits conferred upon Egypt by the Assuan reservoir rendered further schemes for storage inevitable, and as no suitable site could be found for another reservoir above Assuan, it was decided to raise the dam there to about the height originally proposed by Sir William Willcocks. Baker solved the difficult problem of uniting new to old masonry so as to form a solid structure, in the conditions obtaining in the Assuan dam, by building the upper portion of the dam as an independent structure which could be united to the lower by grouting with cement when it had ceased to settle and contract. Just before his death Baker went to Egypt to settle the plans and contract for this work (since completed), as well as preliminary plans for a bridge across the Nile at Boulac.
Smaller but important works which Baker also undertook include the vessel which he designed with Mr. John Dixon in 1877 for the conveyance of Cleopatra's Needle from Egypt to England (see his 'Cleopatra's Needle,' Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. lxi. 233, for which, and for a paper on 'The River Nile,' he received a Telford medal from Inst. Civil Eng.) ; the Chignecto ship railway, for which Fowler and Baker were consulting engineers, and which was commenced in 1888 and abandoned in 1891 owing to financial difficulties; the Avonmouth docks (in association with Sir John Wolfe Barry, 1902-8); the Rosslare and Waterford railway; the widening of the Buccleuch dock entrance at Barrow, and the construction of the bascule bridges at Walney (Barrow-in-Furness) and across the Swale near Queenborough.
Baker gave much professional advice in regard to important structures at home and abroad. When the roof of Charing Cross railway station collapsed on 5 Dec. 1905 he at once examined it, at some personal danger, and gave serviceable counsel. He was also consulted by Captain J. B. Eads in connection with the design of the St. Louis bridge across the Mississippi, and in regard to the first Hudson river tunnel. When the latter undertaking threatened failure, he designed a pneumatic shield which enabled the work to be extended 2000 ft., about three-fourths of the way across the river (1888-91). Nowhere were his abilities appreciated more highly than in Canada and the United States. He was an honorary member of both the Canadian and the American Society of Civil Engineers and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Baker served from 1888 until his death on the ordnance committee, of which he became the senior civil member on the death of Sir Frederick Bramwell [q. v. Suppl. II] in 1903. He was active in many government inquiries. He was a member of a committee on light railways in 1895, and of the committee appointed by the board of trade in 1900 to inquire into the loss of strength in steel rails. To the London county council he reported in 1891, with (Sir) Alexander Binnie, on the main drainage of London, and in 1897, with George Frederick Deacon [q. v. Suppl. II], on the water-supply of London from Wales.
Baker was elected an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1867, a member in 1877, a member of council in 1882, and president in 1895, remaining on the council till his death. His services to the institution were very valuable. During his presidency the governing body was enlarged with a view to giving the chief colonies and the principal industrial districts at home representation on the council, and the system of election of the council was modified.
Baker became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1890 and a member of its council in 1892-3, and was one of its vice-presidents from 1896 until his death.
Of the British Association, Baker was president of the mechanical science section at Aberdeen in 1885. He was also actively interested in the Royal Institution, in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (on the council of which he sat from 1899 until death), in the (Royal) Society of Arts, and in the Iron and Steel Institute. He was an associate of the Institution of Naval Architects and an honorary associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Honorary degrees were conferred upon him by the Universities of Cambridge (D.Sc. 1900), Edinburgh (LL.D. 1890), and Dublin (M.Eng. 1892).
Baker died suddenly from syncope at his residence, Bowden Green, Pangbourne, on 19 May 1907, and was buried at Idbury, near Chipping Norton. He was unmarried. His portrait in oils, by J. C. Michie, is in the possession of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and an excellent photograph forms the frontispiece of vol. clviii. of that society's 'Proceedings.'
A memorial window, designed by Mr. J. N. Comper, was unveiled by Earl Cromer on 3 Dec. 1909 in the north aisle of the nave of Westminster Abbey.
[Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. lxxxiv.; Min. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., clxx. 377; The Times, 20 May 1907; Engineering, lxxiii. 685, lxxviii. 791; the Engineer, ciii. 524; see art. Fowler, Sir John, Suppl. I.]