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James Henry Greathead - tunnel engineer

21/10/2023

1 Comment

 
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James Henry Greathead (1844-1896)- Tunelling Pioneer died On This Day 21 October 1896.

He lived at "Ravenscraig" junction of Valley Road and Leigham Court Road, Streatham. The 1891 census information includes his wife Blanch, son James and daughter Nancy and 3 servants.

Greathead has been described as "the practical author of the great London Tubes" and "South Africa's greatest engineer". His most important invention is the tunnelling shield; even today. worldwide, modem tunnelling shields are still referred to as Greathead shields. Interesting that he is also the reason that the London Underground is colloquially named "the tube"

James Henry stands alongside Sir Joseph Bazalgette and Marc Brunel (Isambard’s Dad) as one of London’s great tunnellers. He designed the Greathead Tunnelling Shield with which he built a subway beneath the Thames in 1869 to help relieve the street traffic. It employed a single, cable-drawn carriage but was not a commercial success. Other inventions include the injected fire hydrant and the grouting machine used to stop Winchester Cathedral collapsing. He was elected to the Council of the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1884.

English Heritage approved a commemorative plaque on his home, then known as "Birchwood", in St Mary's Grove, Barnes, where he lived with his family between 1885 and 1890. He lived in Streatham longer than he did in Barnes but the house in Streatham no longer stands

Greathead died at "Ravenscraig" in Streatham 21 October 1896 and the will was proved with an estate valued at £18,874. He is buried at West Norwood Cemetery
Images 
  1. James Henry Greathead pictured in about 1880–90, around the time he was living at 3 St Mary's Grove, near Richmond Park © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection
  2. Men working in a tunnel at Mornington Crescent, Camden, in 1922 using the ‘Greathead Shield’. They are breaking down earth in front of the shield and shovelling the spoil to the rear by hand © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection
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1 Comment
Adam Shattock
31/5/2024 05:41:57 am

Peter Shattock has the original portrait of Jim Greathead as pictured. It has hung on our family's walls for as long as I can remember. He was a brilliant man and immensely ingenious. His other invention was a single bogie train carriage which was patentedd but never built. the idea was to remove extra bogies from carriages and thereby reduce their weight and cost. The carriages would be linked together on top of each bogie to reduce the sum of wheels and reduce wear on rails.

The hydrant nozzle was a world first for using high pressure water jets to mechanically excavate tunnel faces in soft earth. By accident, Jim discovered that the dirty waste water left columns of sediment that solidified, beginning the use of sprayed grout on tunnel walls instead of just being injected behind cast-iron reinforcing sections. Shot-Crete is the modern result.

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    Mark Bery, Secretary Streatham Society

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