John Brannis Birch

• Birth date            5 February 1813
• Baptism                8 July 1813
• Death date          17 June 1862
• Interment           Highgate Cemetery (West)

John Brannis Birch was born in born in Gloucester Terrace, Shoreditch, London, the son of John Birch and his wife Susanne (Bannis) on 8 July 1813. John Birch is variously described as an architect and surveyor or a corn merchant. John Branis Birch supposedly studied architecture and surveying under his father, and subsequently practised as a Civil Engineer. By 1839 John Bannis Birch was working for the engineer Rowland Macdonald Stephenson (1808–1895 along with his brother). In 1843 Stephenson left for Calcutta in connection with the East India Railway following which he entered into partnership with Eugenius Birch (M. Inst. C.E.), a partnership which theoretically continued until his death but effectively ended in December 1860 when he was found to be of unsound mind and was placed in a private lunatic asylum. He was engaged in works of varied character until 1845, when he took a prominent part, as Engineer, in the parliamentary survey and sections of several important lines of railway. He was then engaged in laying out the section of the East Indian Railway from Calcutta to Delhi, and with his brother designed all of the bridges and viaducts on the line. With his brother, he designed a number of seaside piers, the first at Margate in 1853. He was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1842, and in that capacity, he remained to the time of his death. He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1847.

John Brannis Birch died on 17 June 1862 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery (West)

Address
1843-1856     3 Cannon Row, Parliament Street, Westminster,
1858-1860    43 Parliament Street Westminster

Obituary        Institution of Civil Engineers 1863

For works see Eugenius Birch