Basic Biographical Details Name: | John Frederick La Trobe Bateman | Designation: | | Born: | 30 May 1810 | Died: | 10 June 1889 | Bio Notes: | John Frederick La Trobe Bateman was born John Frederick Bateman at Lower Wyke, Halifax, on 30 May 1810, the eldest son of John Bateman, a manufacturer and financially unsuccessful inventor and his wife Mary Agnes La Trobe, daughter of Benjamin La Trobe, Moravian missionary and granddaughter of Benjamin La Trobe Senior (1728-86), head of the Moravian congregation in England: the English-American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe [sic] was her uncle. Because of problems at home John Frederic was sent to Moravian schools as a boarder from the age of seven.
In 1825 Bateman was articled to ____ Dunn, a mining engineer at Oldham. He set up practice as a civil engineer in 1833, his first major commission being an investigation of flooding on the River Medlock. In the following year the Manchester engineer William Fairbairn invited him to undertake the necessary surveys for the Bann reservoirs in Northern Ireland. Their acquaintance led to Bateman's marriage to Fairbairn's daughter Anne on 1 September 1841. A series of commissions for water supply works and dams in Yorkshire and Westmoreland in the early 1840s resulted in him taking over the Manchester Water Works from Thomas Hawksley; and that in turn led to him being retained by Glasgow Town Council to advise on the City's water supply. He recommended Loch Katrine as a source and his opinion was endorsed by Richard Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The Loch Katrine Act was obtained in 1855; work commenced in the spring of 1856 and was completed in 1859. The scheme included a number of conduit aqueducts and one major architectural work, the sluice house at Loch Venacher which provided compensation water.
Bateman's increasing fame as a water engineer induced him to move from Manchester to 16 Great George Street, Westminster, in 1859 and set up house at Moor Park, Farnham. The Manchester office then became a branch. His practice had now spread to southern England and Ireland and eventually included major water supply schemes for Naples, Constantinople, Buenos Aires and Colombo.
In Scotland Bateman was consulting engineer for major improvements to the water supply at Greenock (1873) and Perth (1880) and completely new schemes at Inverness (1875-77) and Forfar (1881). The largest of these later Scottish schemes should have been Dundee which proved to be an unhappy experience for all concerned. In 1869 the Town Council obtained an act authorising it to take over the Dundee Water Company, whose engineer was James Leslie, formerly Dundee's harbour engineer. The town's water commissioners appointed Bateman as their engineer and provided him with reports by the burgh engineer John Fulton and the Edinburgh engineer James W Stewart of Stewart & Menzies who recommended drawing water from the River Isla, and from Leslie who recommended the Loch of Lintrathen as providing a better and purer supply. Bateman concurred with Leslie's recommendation and produced a scheme which received the royal assent in 1871; but the commissioners then obtained a further report from Stewart who recommended substituting a direct line of cast-iron pipes instead of the gentler fall achieved by a combination of pipes, reservoirs and aqueducts proposed by Bateman. At a meeting of the commissioners in October Stewart's direct line was approved, although William Robertson, its mill engineer convener, strongly dissented. In an unsolicited report of January 1872 Bateman set out the problems of the unprecedented pressures which would arise from Stewart's scheme and proposed a direct line of his own with lesser gradients: he also refuted allegations of extravagance. Leslie then proposed a partial modification of Stewart's scheme but Stewart declined to change it, as did the Commissioners. The pipes burst and the joints leaked as Bateman and Robertson predicted and the scheme had to be modified under powers obtained in the Dundee Water (Additional Powers) Act of 1874.
Bateman was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers from 1877 to 1879 and was admitted FRS on 7 June 1860. In 1880 he took into partnership George Henry Hill who had been his assistant since 1843 and had been in charge of the Manchester office from 1861. Hill became increasingly independent of the London office and in 1888 the partnership was dissolved. Bateman then took his son-in-law Richard Clere Parsons and his own son Lee La Trobe Bateman into partnership.
Bateman adopted the additional surname of La Trobe in 1883. He died at Moor Park on 10 June 1889. | Private and Business AddressesThe following private or business addresses are associated with this : | | Address | Type | Date from | Date to | Notes | | Lower Wyke, Halifax, Yorkshire, England | Private | 1810 | | | | Oldham, Lancashire, England | Business | 1825 | After 1833 | As apprentice to ____ Dunn | | Manchester, England | Business | Early 1840s | 1859 | | | 16, Great George Street, Westminster, London, England | Business | 1859 | | | | Moor Park, Farnham, Surrey, England | Private | After 1859 | 1889 | |
Employment and TrainingEmployersThe following individuals or organisations employed or trained this (click on an item to view details): | | Name | Date from | Date to | Position | Notes | | ___ Dunn | 1825 | Before 1833 | Apprentice | |
Buildings and Designs
ReferencesBibliographic ReferencesThe following books contain references to this : | | Author(s) | Date | Title | Part | Publisher | Notes | | Binnie, G M | 1981 | Early Victorian Water Engineers | | | | | New DNB | | New Dictionary of National Biography | | | |
Periodical ReferencesThe following periodicals contain references to this : | | Periodical Name | Date | Edition | Publisher | Notes | | Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers | 1890 or 1890 | XCVII | | pp 393-4 |
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