page_title: Thomas Brassey
section_title: Commemorations
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Brassey / Commemorations
caption_attribution_description: Brassey Tribute Stones, Bulkeley, Cheshire. Tribute to Thomas Brassey (1805-70)
context_page_description: Thomas Brassey was an English civil engineering contractor and manufacturer of building materials who was responsible for building much of the world's railways in the 19th century. By 1847, he had built about one-third of the railways in Britain, and by time of his death in 1870 he had built one in every twenty miles of railway in the world. This included three-quarters of the lines in France, major lines in many other European countries and in Canada, Australia, South America and India. He also built the structures associated with those railways, including docks, bridges, viaducts, stations, tunnels and drainage works.
  As well as railway engineering, Brassey was active in the development of steamships, mines, locomotive factories, marine telegraphy, and water supply and sewage systems. He built part of the London sewerage system, still in operation today, and was a major shareholder in Brunel's The Great Eastern, the only ship large enough at the time to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable across the North Atlantic, in 1864. He left a fortune of over £5 million, equivalent to about £600 million in 2020.
context_section_description: None of his three sons became involved in their father's work and the business was wound up by administrators. The sons created a memorial to their parents in St Erasmus' Chapel in Chester cathedral. This consists of a backcloth to the altar inscribed to their parents' memory, and a bust of their father to the north of the altar. The memorial is by Sir Arthur Blomfield and the bust by M. Wagmiller. There is also a bust of Thomas in Chester's Grosvenor Museum and plaques to his memory in Chester station. Streets named after him in Chester are Brassey Street and Thomas Brassey Close (which is off Lightfoot Street).
  In November 2005, Penkridge celebrated the bicentenary of Brassey's birth and a special commemorative train was run from Chester to Holyhead. In January 2007, children from Overchurch Junior School in Upton, Wirral celebrated the life of Brassey. In April 2007 a plaque was placed on Brassey's first bridge at Saughall Massie. In the village of Bulkeley, near Malpas, Cheshire, is a tree called the 'Brassey Oak' on land once owned by the Brassey family. This was planted to celebrate Thomas' 40th birthday in 1845. It was surrounded by four inscribed sandstone pillars tied together by iron rails but due to the growth of the tree these burst and the stones fell. They were recovered and in 2007 were replaced in a more accessible place with an information board.
  In 2019 a blue plaque was installed by Conservation Areas Wirral on the remaining structure of his Canada Works building in Beaufort Road, now part of the Wirral Waters area in Birkenhead.
caption: Brassey Tribute Stones, Bulkeley
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