Читать книгу A Cyclopædia of Canadian Biography - Various - Страница 62

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Wallis, Herbert, Montreal, Mechanical Superintendent of the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, was born at Derby, England, on March 10th, 1844, and comes of a family long resident in Derby, whose head was for several generations engaged in the business of stage-coaching. His father, William Wallace Wallis, abandoned the business on the advent of railways, and became one of the carriers or cartage agents of the Midland Railway, from which he retired, in favour of one of his sons, some years prior to his death. Herbert Wallis was educated at the Commercial College, near Halifax, England, and here he was specially trained in that branch of the engineering profession which he now follows. On the completion of his education he entered the service of the Midland Railway Company as a pupil of Matthew Kirtley, then locomotive superintendent, and was engaged in the drawing office and workshops of that railway at Derby till August, 1866, at which date he was appointed foreman of the locomotive and carriage departments at Bradford, Yorkshire. In March, 1871, he accepted the position offered to him by Mr. Richard Potter (the then president), of assistant mechanical superintendent of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and sailed for Montreal on May 4th of that year; and in January, 1873, he was appointed chief mechanical superintendent. Mr. Wallis is a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers of England, and one of the council of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers. He is a staunch supporter of the Church of England. He married Mary Ellen, eldest daughter of the late Thomas Walklate, formerly goods manager of the Midland Railway Company, in August, 1870.