Jesse Hartley

• Birth date            21 December 1780
• Death date          24 August 1860

Jesse Hartley was Civil Engineer and is best known as the Superintendent of the Concerns of the Dock Estate in Liverpool, between 1824 and 1860. He was born in Pontefract, Yorkshire on 21 December, 1780. His father was a stonemason and bridge master and Jesse received his early training in the West Riding under his father’s direction. After some years in Ireland, in 1818 he became Bridge-master to the Salford Hundred. By 1821 and styling himself as an architect, he was in residence at Brunswick Terrace, Pendleton, some two miles from Manchester. Works for the Salford Hundred between 1818 and 1824, generally maintenance and repair, are listed in ‘Quarter sessions building in Lancashire 1770-1830’, Georgian Society Journal, vol. X, 2000, 92-121.

In April 1824 Jesse Hartley was selected by the Liverpool Dock Trustees to be their Surveyor at an annual salary of £1,000 and on 7 June 1825 he was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.  In 1832 he was appointed engineer to the Manchester and Bolton Railway. He died on 24 August 1869 at Bootle Marsh, near Liverpool in his eightieth year. Curiously his obituary did not appear in the Institution of Civil Engineers until 1872, following the death of his son.

Residence
1821        Jesse Hartley, architect, Brunswick Terrace, Pendleton (Pigot and Dean 1821-22)

Obituary         Institution of Civil Engineers 1872 page 219-222

Reference    Engineer 31 August 1860 page 154
Reference    Observer 2 September 1860 page 8 Observer 3 September 1860 page 8 – deaths
Reference    C. Chalkin, ‘Quarter sessions building in Lancashire 1770-1830’, Georgian Society Journal, vol. X, 2000, 92-121

Note: The design of a number of Manchester bridges are erroneously attributed to Jesse Hartley, not supported by contemporary references. These include Victoria Bridge, between Manchester and Salford 1838-9, Charles Carrington (qv); Albert Bridge, 1843-1844, George W Buck (qv), Palatine Bridge 1858-1864, (W Radford (qv)