Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION SEVEN.
OFFICERS OF THE CORPORATION.
IX. BOROUGH SURVEYORS.

The Dover Corporation did not employ a Town Surveyor
until the establishment of the Paving Commission in 1778,
and under that body the appointed Surveyor was also engaged
in private practice.

The first Surveyor on record was Mr. Richard Elsam,
who was also a builder. As Surveyor of the Town he has
left no work by which he may be remembered, but he built
the Borough Gaol which used to stand where the Market
and Museum now stand. He also built the well known
Round House for Mr. John Shipdem, the Town Clerk, in
Townwall Street ; and most people have noticed the legend,
" Elsam 's Cottages," on a row of tenements in Dieu Stone
Lane, which he Duilt out of the odds and ends of material
left from the erection of the Prison, in 1820.

The next Surveyor engaged by the Town was Mr. John
Hall, who resigned in 1848.

There were four candidates for the office in 1848, Mr.
George Fry, Mr. Rowland Rees, Mr. Thomas Marks, and
Mr. Edward Gotto, all well known men. Mr. Gotto was
appointed, and he worked out a plan of Town drainage,
which might have been carried out by the Commissioners
under the Public Health Act of 1848; but the Paving Com-
mission, with the new Town Council overshadowing it, was
in a moribund condition, and had no heart for opening up
new work, so this Sur\'eycr's plans were neglected. Being
ambitious, Mr. Gotto sought a field where his energies would
be appreciated, and obtained an appointment under the
Metropolitan Commissioners of Sev/ers, in July, 1849.

Mr. Rowland Rees was then elected to fill the vacancy
as Surveyor to the Paving Commission, but, although he was
a man of energy, he could not move the Commissioners to
action, so he joined in an agitation to have the whole business
of the Public Health transferred to the Town Council. The
transfer was effected by the Town Council adopting the
Public Health Act in 1850, and on the 14th July in that
year Mr. Rees was elected by the Town Council as their
Surveyor uiuler the Local Board of Health which then came



OFFICERS OF THE CORPORATION 355

into existence. Mr. Rees was not required to give his whole
time to the Town Surveyorship. He was engaged in private
practice as an architect and surveyor, and designed a good
many of the houses built in Dover between 1850 and i860.
The National Provincial Bank, on New Bridge, was his work.
He also had much to do with the Town sewerage and estab-
lishment of the Waterworks, although in both of these
undertakings special professional advice was obtained. In
1861 the Corporation decided to have a Surveyor who was
not engaged in private practice, and they offered Mr. Rees
;^30o per annum if he would accept the post, but he refused.
About that time he became the Engineer of the Dover
Harbour, also launching out as a leading politician, eventually
becoming an Alderman and a Mayor.

Mr. John Hanvey, a Gloucestershire man, was appointed
Surveyor on the 6th August, 1861, and he held the office
with much abihty until his death on the 5th November, 1879.
His work was mainly routine, but in one respect he changed
the aspect of the streets of Dover. When he came all the
side-walks were of shingle, with the exception of a Uttle York
paving in the central streets; but he introduced a special
kind of asphalt, which he trained men to prepare and lay
down, and after he had been in Dover ten years he was able
to report to the Council that he had put down in the Dover
streets 13,483 square yards of that asphalt paving, at an
average cost of tenpence per yard.

Mr. Matthew Curry was the next Borough Surveyor. He
was appointed in 1880, selected from 148 applicants, at a
salary of £450 a year. He held the post eight years, and
then resigned to take an appointment in making a foreign
railway.

Mr. Walter Thomas was appointed Surveyor in 1888.
The salary offered on this occasion was reduced to ^300 a
year, yet there were 158 applicants for the post. Mr. Thomas
had been the Town Surveyor of Dorchester, and did not
claim to have had very wide experience. Owing to some
complaints of irregularities, he resigned in 1895, after holding
office seven years.

Mr. H. E. Stilgoe, a rising man of much ability, was
appointed Surveyor 14th March, 1895, selected out of 147
applicants. He had been Surveyor of the Sandgate Urban
Council, and had carried out sea defence works there very



356 ANNALS OF DOVER

efficiently. This Surveyor held the office eleven years, during
which time, in addition to ordinary work, he designed and
prepared plans and specifications for the Dover Electric
Tramways ; and plans for street widening, a scavenging depot,
new waterworks headings, new schools, and the Pier Viaduct.
Everything that Mr. Stilgoe undertook he did well, the only
complamt against him being that his works were rather
expensive. During his eleven years at Dover his salary was
raised from ;^35o to ^600, and at the end of that time he
resigned to take a post as Surveyor under the Croporation of
the City of Birmingham.

Mr. W. C. Hawke was appointed Surveyor on the 26th
June, 1906, selected from 149 applicants, the salary being
^^500. At the time of his election Mr. Hawke was Engineer
in charge of the Admiralty Harbour Works at Dover. In
addition to the routine work of the Town, the long-projected
Pier Viaduct was taken in hand after Mr. Hawke had been
Surveyor about eight years, together with a Pier District
re-housing scheme, but, owing to the European War, those
schemes are not yet completed. Mr. Hawke, holding a
commission in the Cinque Ports (Fortress) Royal Engineers
(T.), went on active service in France, his place being filled
by Mr. R. Crummack as deputy.



OFFICERS OF THE CORPORATION 357