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Biography of Sandford Fleming, SirName: Sandford Fleming, SirBirth Date: January 7, 1827 Death Date: July 22, 1915 Place of Birth: Kirkcaldy, Scotland Nationality: Scottish, Canadian Gender: Male Occupations: engineer, spokesman Sandford Fleming, Sir Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915) was a Scottish-born Canadian railway engineer who became a widely recognized publicist for various scientific, imperial, and public causes.Sandford Fleming was born on Jan. 7, 1827, at Kirkcaldy, Scotland, where he studied engineering and surveying. He went to Canada West in 1845 and qualified as a civil engineer; he undertook surveys, road projects, and several early town plans between Hamilton and Peterborough.In 1849 Fleming was prominent among a group of young scientists and engineers in founding the Canadian Institute at Toronto. Fleming also designed the first Canadian postage stamp, the threepenny beaver, in 1851. His marriage in 1855 to Ann Jean Hall of Peterborough (they had six children) marked the end of the period of his adjustment to Canada and the beginning of his distinguished career as a railway builder.Railway Engineer and BuilderFleming's reputation developed in the railway building boom of the 1850s, particularly when he was chief engineer of …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…in 1896. He was knighted in 1897.Fleming wrote many scientific papers and reports on railway surveys and construction. His books include Railway Inventions (1847); A Railway to the Pacific through British Territory (1858); The Intercolonial (1876); England and Canada: A Summer Tour between Old and New Westminster (1884); and Canada and British Imperial Cables (1900). Fleming died at Halifax on July 22, 1915. Further Reading There is a laudatory memoir prepared with Fleming's assistance and relying heavily on his writings: Lawrence J. Burpee, Sandford Fleming, Empire Builder (1915). An interesting and detailed biography of Fleming is Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the Creation of Standard Time (2001). Fleming's activities in surveying for the Canadian Pacific Railway are recounted in Don W. Thomson, Men and Meridians: The History of Surveying and Mapping in Canada (3 vols., 1966-1969). See also John Lorne McDougall, Canadian Pacific: A Brief History (1968).Green, Lorne Edmond, Chief engineer: life of a nation builder--Sandford Fleming, Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993. |