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GREATHEAD, JAMES HENRY (18441896) , British engineer, was born at Grahamstown, Cape Colony, on the 6th of August 1844. He migrated to England in 1859, and in 1864 was a pupil of P. W. Barlow, from whom he became acquainted with the shield system of tunnelling with which his name is especially associated. Barlow, indeed, had a strong belief in the shield, and was the author of a scheme for facilitating the traffic of London by the construction of underground railways running in cast-iron tubes constructed by its aid. To show what the method could do, it was resolved to make a subway under the Thames near the Tower, but the troubles encountered by Sir M. I. Brunel in the Thames Tunnel, where also a shield was employed, made engineers hesitate to undertake the subway, even though it was of very much smaller dimensions (6 ft. 7 in.1 Great
pioneer
financial
Great
Pioneer
internal diameter ) than the tunnel. At this juncture Greathead came forward and offered to take up the contract ; and he successfully carried it through in 1869 without finding any necessity to resort to the use of compressed air, which Barlow in 1867 had suggested might be employed in water-bearing strata. After this he began to practise on his own account, and mainly divided his time between railway construction and taking out patents for improvements in his shield, and for other inventions such as the " Ejector " fire-hydrant. Early in the 'eighties he began to work
Parliament was obtained authorizing what is now the City & South London Railway-a tube-railway to be worked by cables. This was begun in 1886, and the tunnels were driven by means of the Greathead shield, compressed air being used at those points where water-bearing gravel
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