Here Are The Engineers & Designers Behind The Lift Lock & Trent Canal
/Ever wondered who designed and oversaw construction of the Trent Canal and Lift Lock? Well Trent Valley Archives tell us it was Peterborough's Richard Birdsall Rogers—aka R.B. Rogers—a civil and mechanical engineer from Peterborough who studied at McGill.
In preparation for such an enormous undertaking, Rogers actually went to France, Belgium and England to study other (smaller) lift locks around the world. The whole canal project took many years—the Lift Lock itself was begun in 1896 and completed in 1904—and Rogers was the superintendant for most of the work. The lock officially opened to the public to a huge crowd in July 1904. Here are pictures below...
RB Rogers, pictured in the dark jacket near the centre, with his team of engineers (and a dog).
Opening Day
