Portrait of Edward Mackenzie by G.B.Black. Reproduced my kind permission of the Institution of Civil Engineers and with thanks to Brian Mackenzie Usill for supplying this copy.
edward mackenzie, born 1811
victorian railway contractor
Edward Mackenzie (1811-1880) was the youngest brother of the more famous William Mackenzie. Together they worked as railway contractors from the mid 1830s when railway construction was at its peak in Britain. Despite their many achievements they have featured very little in engineering history because the relevant documents were packed away when Edward ceased work not long after his brother’s death in 1851. These remained in a kind of time capsule until an approach was made to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1990. After William’s death Edward was able to embark on a very different life as a landowner, magistrate, Lord of the Manor of Henley and eventually High Sheriff of Oxfordshire. This section of his life reveals much about him.
Source: Contributed in 2020 by Gwyneth Wilkie, a member of the Society of Genealogists. Gwyneth Wilkie’s great great great grandmother Sarah Mackenzie was Edward Mackenzie’s sister.