Friday, 6 January 2017

Sandford Fleming Google Doodle.Top 30 Facts about Sandford Fleming

Top 30 Facts about Sandford Fleming

FLEMING, Sir SANDFORD, surveyor, draftsman, engineer, office holder, and college chancellor;

Educated first in Kennoway and Kirkcaldy, at age 14 Sandford Fleming became a pupil of the Scottish engineer and surveyor John Sang.

Sandford Fleming was a Canadian engineer and inventor.
He  was a founding member of the Royal Society of Canada and founder of the Royal Canadian Institute, a science organization in Toronto.

In 1827, Fleming was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland to Andrew and Elizabeth Fleming.

At the age of 14 he was apprenticed as a surveyor and in 1845, at the age of 18, he emigrated with his older brother David to colonial Canada.

In 1863 the Canadian government appointed him chief surveyor of the first portion of a proposed railway from Québec City to Halifax and Saint John.

Their route took them through many cities of the Canadian colonies: Quebec City, Montreal, and Kingston, before settling in Peterborough with their cousins two years later in 1847. He qualified as a surveyor in Canada in 1849.

He qualified as a surveyor in Canada in 1849.

In 1849 he created the Royal Canadian Institute with several friends, which was formally incorporated on November 4, 1851.

In 1851 he designed the Threepenny Beaver, the first Canadian postage stamp.

Throughout this time he was fully employed as a surveyor, mostly for the Grand Trunk Railway.

His work for them eventually gained him the position as Chief Engineer of the Northern Railway of Canada in 1855, where he advocated the construction of iron bridges instead of wood for safety reasons.

Fleming served in the 10th Battalion Volunteer Rifles of Canada (later known as the Royal Regiment of Canada) and was appointed to the rank of Captain on January 1, 1862

He retired from the militia in 1865.

As soon as he arrived in Peterborough, Ontario in 1845, Fleming became friendly with the family of his future wife, the Halls, and was attracted to Ann Jane (Jeanie) Hall.

January 1855, Sandford married Ann Jane (Jean) Hall.

The oldest son, Frank Andrew, accompanied Fleming in his great Western expedition of 1872.

After the death of his wife Jeanie in 1888, Fleming's niece Miss Elsie Smith, daughter of Alexander and Lily Smith, of Kingussie, Scotland, presided over his household at "Winterholme" 213 Chapel Street, Ottawa, Ontario.

 Starting as assistant engineer in 1852, Fleming replaced Cumberland in 1855 but was in turn ousted by him in 1862.

In 1862 he placed before the government a plan for a transcontinental railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans


in 1884 he became a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway and was present as the last spike was driven.

He suggested that standard time zones could be used locally, but they were subordinate to his single world time, which he called Cosmic Time.

In 1880 he served as the vice president of the Ottawa Horticultural Society.

His accomplishments were well known worldwide, and in 1897 he was knighted by Queen Victoria. He was a freemason.

The town of Fleming, Saskatchewan (located on the Canadian Pacific Railway) was named in his honour in 1882

Fleming Hall was built in his honour at Queen's in 1901, and rebuilt after a fire in 1932. It was the home of the university's Electrical Engineering department.

Sir Sanford Fleming elementary school was built in Vancouver in 1913.

Google celebrate Sandford Fleming 190th Birthday with Doodle




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