A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
History
A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time: A Collection of Persons Distinguished in Professional and Political Life, Leaders in the Commerce and Industry of Canada, and Successful Pioneers
=Wallis, Herbert=, Montreal, Mechanical Superintendent of the Grand
Trunk Railway of Canada, was born at Derby, England, on March 10th,
1844, and comes of a family long resident in Derby, whose head was for
several generations engaged in the business of stage-coaching. His
father, William Wallace Wallis, abandoned the business on the advent of
railways, and became one of the carriers or cartage agents of the
Midland Railway, from which he retired, in favour of one of his sons,
some years prior to his death. Herbert Wallis was educated at the
Commercial College, near Halifax, England, and here he was specially
trained in that branch of the engineering profession which he now
follows. On the completion of his education he entered the service of
the Midland Railway Company as a pupil of Matthew Kirtley, then
locomotive superintendent, and was engaged in the drawing office and
workshops of that railway at Derby till August, 1866, at which date he
was appointed foreman of the locomotive and carriage departments at
Bradford, Yorkshire. In March, 1871, he accepted the position offered to
him by Mr. Richard Potter (the then president), of assistant mechanical
superintendent of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and sailed for
Montreal on May 4th of that year; and in January, 1873, he was appointed
chief mechanical superintendent. Mr. Wallis is a member of the
Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers of England, and one of the council of the Canadian Society of
Civil Engineers. He is a staunch supporter of the Church of England. He
married Mary Ellen, eldest daughter of the late Thomas Walklate,
formerly goods manager of the Midland Railway Company, in August, 1870.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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