Jesse Hartley

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Jesse Hartley
Jesse Hartley

Jesse Hartley was born in Pontefract, Yorkshire, England 21st December 1780, died Bootle, Liverpool 24th August 1860. He was ‘Civil Engineer and Superintendent of the Concerns of the Dock Estate’ in Liverpool, England between 1824 and 1860.

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[edit] Hartley's career

Despite having no experience of dock building, Hartley was the first full-time professional dock engineer in the world. He had previously worked for his father, Bernard Hartley who was a stonemason, architect and bridgemaster, John Carr and the Duke of Devonshire.

Initially he was appointed Deputy Dock Surveyor to John Foster Jr. However, due to John Foster Jr. resigning three days later, he was promoted to Acting Dock Surveyor. During his service, he not only built new docks, but also modernised all of the existing docks, with the exception of the Old Dock (opened in 1715) which had become disused and filled in. The docks at Liverpool grew from 46 to 212 acres (19 to 86 ha) during his tenure.

In 1831 he was appointed to convert the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal to a railway line. He persuaded the company to keep the canal open and build the railway more or less along its route.

Between 1841 and 1843 he prepared a number of different designs for fireproof construction of dockside warehouses. In 1843, he made models of warehouse arches at the Trentham Street Dockyard, to test sheet iron lined timber floored building method and brick and iron building materials. Through fire testing of these models, he eventually convinced the Dock Board Trustees of the benefits of his iron framed construction method. These experiments proved the worthiness of his fireproof design and he designed the Albert Dock to these specifications.

Hartley’s improvements over earlier dock and warehouse design included the use of locks to keep the water at a constant level, so that loading and unloading of ships’ cargoes was not reliant on the tide and the enclosure of the dock with high boundary walls, to reduce theft from the docks. He also adapted and improved the design of St Katherine’s Dock in London, by incorporating high arches in the buildings to accommodate cranes.

[edit] Docks built

[edit] Notable buildings

Hartley utilised an eclectic mix of styles and methods of construction in the various buildings associated with the docks. These ranged from the cyclopean to ordinary brick built methods and styles as diverse as Greek revival and severe Gothic.

  • Albert Dock Warehouses
  • Wapping Dock Warehouse
  • Stanley Dock Warehouses
  • Stanley and Wapping Docks’ Accumulator towers
  • Canada Dock Accumulator tower (demolished)
  • Wapping Policeman’s Lodge
  • Salthouse Dock Transit shed (rebuilt granite gable end survives)
  • Canning Half-tide Dock Watchmen’s Huts

[edit] References

  • Jesse Hartley – Dock Engineer to the Port of Liverpool 1824-60 – Nancy Ritchie-Noakes, 1980
  • Buildings of Liverpool – Liverpool Heritage Bureau, 1978
  • Pevsner Architectural Guides – Liverpool – Joseph Sharples, 2004

[edit] External links


Preceded by
John Foster		 Engineer to Mersey Docks and Harbour Board
1824-1860		 Succeeded by
John Hartley