Ramparts of Empire
The Fortifications of Sir William Jervois, Royal Engineer 1821 - 1897

William Jervois was a military engineer who rose to prominence as a result of Lord Palmerston’s extensive programme of fortification against a feared French invasion in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Ramparts of Empire is a detailed and engaging study of his life and works. As the first comprehensive study of this influential Victorian, the bookis an important contribution to military and engineering history as well as to the history of Imperial Britain.

The text is richly illustrated with photographs and plans of Jervois’ forts, while supporting appendices provide a mine of supplementary information. This includes a gazetteer of Jervois’ works and documentary evidence of his involvement in plans for a Channel Tunnel and a proposal for attacking the seaboard of the United States.

In 1860, Palmerston’s parliament sanctioned the construction of the largest system of fortifications that the British Isles had ever seen, or would ever see again, to defend against a feared French invasion. For William Jervois, then a young major in the Royal Engineers, his appointment as ‘design leader’ of this programme was a major step in a career in fortress construction that would see his work in Britain, the Channel Islands, Ireland, Canada, Bermuda, India, and later, Australia and New Zealand.

Timothy Crick makes extensive use of extracts from Jervois’ diaries and illustrations of his fortresses to give the reader a rounded picture of this Royal Engineer’s wide-ranging career. He also captures a real sense of the fears of invasion that prevailed in this period. Throughout the book both the political background and the technical considerations involved in constructing forts and armaments are carefully explored to flesh out the motivations in what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of British fort building.

CONTENTS

GLOSSARY

CHRONOLOGY                                                                                                                                                                                               

INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER ONE: EARLY DAYS IN AFRICA                                                                

CHAPTER TWO: APPOINTMENT IN ALDERNEY      

CHAPTER THREE: THE THREAT FROM FRANCE                                                               

CHAPTER FOUR: THE 1859 ROYAL COMMISSION                                                           

 CHAPTER FIVE:  DEFENDING THE NAVAL BASES                                                     

 CHAPTER SIX: MISSION TO CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES                      

 CHAPTER SEVEN: THE IRONCLAD FORTS                                                                          

 CHAPTER EIGHT: IMPERIAL PROGRESS

 CHAPFER NINE: AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND AND THE THREAT FROM RUSSIA             

 CHAPTER TEN: COAST DEFENCE, HONOURS AND RETIREMENT                            

 CHAPTER ELEVEN: JERVOIS IN CONTEXT

 CHAPTER NOTES

APPENDIX A:               Gazetteer: List of fortified works associated with Jervois                   

APPENDIX B:                The Relative Industrial Strength of the Major Powers in the 19th Century

APPENDIX C:                The 'Battle of Dorking' and its Successors                                               

APPENDIX D:               The Arming of the Coaling Stations, 1884                                               

APPENDIX E:                'A Plan for Attacking the Seaboard of the United States'

APPENDIX F:                Jervois and the Channel Tunnel (1883)

 APPENDIX G:              The Relative Value of the British Pound

 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

 INDEX OF PEOPLE & PLACES

Timothy Crick is qualified in mechanical engineering and industrial design and has lectured in these disciplines as well as in design history. He is a member of the Fortress Study Group, the Coast Defense Study Group (US) and the Palmerston Forts Society.