Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nimmo, Alexander
NIMMO, ALEXANDER (1783–1832), civil engineer, born at Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire, in 1783, was the son of a watchmaker, who afterwards kept a hardware store. Alexander was educated at Kirkcaldy grammar school and the universities of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, where he achieved distinction in Latin, Greek, and mathematics. At nineteen he became a schoolmaster, and was appointed rector of Inverness Academy in 1802. Telford the engineer recommended Nimmo to the parliamentary commission appointed to fix the boundaries of the counties of Scotland, and he accomplished the work during his vacations. Interesting himself in his new occupation, he gave up teaching and obtained an appointment as surveyor to the commissioners for reclaiming the bogs of Ireland, for whom he constructed an admirable series of reports and maps. He next made a tour of France, Germany, and Holland to inspect the public works in those countries as a help in his new profession. On his return he was engaged in the construction of Dunmore Harbour, and was employed by the fishery board to make surveys of the harbours of Ireland, and build harbours and piers at various points on the coast. He also executed an accurate chart of the coast, and compiled a book of sailing directions for Ireland and St. George's Channel. In 1822 he was appointed engineer of the western district, and between that year and 1830 the sum of 167,000l. was spent in reclaiming waste land, thus giving employment to the distressed peasantry at the time of the Irish famine. During his life upwards of thirty piers or harbours were built under his direction on the Irish coast, and a harbour at Porth Cawl in South Wales. The Wellesley bridge and docks at Limerick were designed by him; and he was engaged in the construction of the Liverpool and Leeds railway, and of the Manchester, Bolton, and Bury Railway. Nimmo was consulting engineer to the Duchy of Lancaster, the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, the St. Helen's and Runcorn Gap Railway, the Preston and Wigan Railway, and the Birkenhead and Chester Railway. Although business occupied most of his time, Nimmo became proficient in modern languages, as well as in astronomy, chemistry, and geology. To the ‘Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy’ he contributed a paper showing the relations between geology and navigation. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of the Institute of British Architects. In Brewster's ‘Cyclopædia’ the article on ‘Inland Navigation’ is from his pen; while, jointly with Telford, he is responsible for that on ‘Bridges,’ and, with Nicholson, for that on ‘Carpentry.’ Nimmo won great distinction as a mathematician in the trial between the corporation of Liverpool and the Mersey company. It has been said that he was ‘the only engineer of the age who could at all have competed with Brougham, the examining counsel, in his knowledge of the higher mathematics and natural philosophy, on which the whole subject in dispute depended.’ Nimmo died at Dublin on 20 Jan. 1832.
[Conolly's Eminent Men of Fife; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen.]