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THE DOCKLANDS - GEORGE HALPIN, FATHER & SON

'Dublin Docklands - An Urban Voyage’ is a work in progress, commissioned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, and due to be completed in the autumn of 2008. The following tale represents research undertaken for the project which may or may not be used in the final book.

George Halpin Senior (1775 – 1854)

George Halpin, Senior, was one of the most competent civil engineers operating in Ireland during the 19th century. He was an administrator of exceptional ability, praised in equal measure for the number of works he carried out and the intense perfectionism applied in each case. Following the death of Francis Tunstall in 1800, Dublin Corporation sought a new Inspector of Works to the Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin (commonly called the Ballast Board). On 26th September 1800, 21-year-old George Halpin emerged from nowhere to take up the challenge. We do not know where he was born or who his parents were. The report of the Commission of Inquiry into the municipal corporations of Ireland (1835) defined him as 'not an Engineer in the professional sense but was brought up as a builder'. In other words, he was a trained mason, a builder by trade. He never attained any academic engineering qualifications. And yet he was responsible for the design, construction, and maintenance of all civil and mechanical works within Dublin Port, from Sutton on the north side of Dublin Bay to Bullock Harbour on the south. This included he management and containment of the River Liffey from Islandbridge and the lower reaches of the rivers Tolka and Dodder. He also oversaw the building of at least 53 lighthouses, as well as the modernisation and re-equipping of the previously existing lighthouses. This was in addition to supervising the construction of new docks, bridges and other projects for the expanding Dublin port.

The Perfectionist

Halpin was a perfectionist who exacted the highest standards, often going beyond the call of duty. In 1849, Sir William Cubitt praised his work to the Ballast Board, saying ‘it makes me feel as it were more a work of supererogation rather than necessity that I should report’ on his proposals and work. The scale of his activity in Dublin may be gauged from a typical annual report made in 1823 that enumerated the 13 items to be dealt with that year at a total cost of £13,600. During Halpin's period the Corporation's statutory functions were financially controlled and managed as three separate departments; the Port Department, the Anne Liffey Department, and the Lighthouse Department. Halpin's input into the management of all three departments was such that he received a salary from each. When the government accused them of paying Halpin lavishly, they pointed out that the house where he lived – which formed part of his income – was ‘in the store-yard at the point of the North Wall, where his residence makes a store-keeper unnecessary’. Halpin was the Public face of the Lighthouse Department, and its chief liaison officer with Trinity House and other bodies. He was married in about 1802 to Elizabeth. That same year, the Ballast Board granted him £10 to buy a horse. George and Elizabeth had at least one child, George junior, born in 1804, who circa 1830, was appointed as his assistant.

Halpin & the River Liffey

George Halpin completely rebuilt the walls of the Liffey on both sides of the river from O’Connell Bridge to Rory O’More Bridge, as well as the quay walls downstream at Eden Quay and Burgh Quay. He repaired Mellowes Bridge and remodeled the centre span of Grattan Bridge and the approaches to the Halfpenny Bridge. He oversaw the design and construction of Father Matthew Bridge and O’Donovan Rossa Bridge, becoming involved in architectural controversy with the designer James Savage about details of their elevations. From 1838, he pressed for the construction of a new bridge to replace Carlisle Bridge, and in 1839 proposed that a competition be held for the new design. He was critical of Gandon’s bridge saying, in 1852, that ‘many think it heavy and it is certainly not in accordance with the new idea held in bridge architecture at the present day. This may be said with every respect for the eminent architect who planned it, but whose practice lay in a different walk’. It was on Halpin’s proposal that the parapet of Inns Quay was formed with a balustrade rather than a solid wall, but he failed to have this repeated, as he wished, along Merchant Quay. His duties for the Ballast Board also included design, supervision of construction, and maintenance of all the existing buildings and engineering works controlled by the Board.

In 1852-3 he sought funds to clean the riverbed through the city to remove its ‘unpleasant smell’ and he noted with regret that ‘the Liffey is still the great main drain into which the sewerage of Dublin opens’. He was required also to deal with minor social irritations. Hence, in 1818, he reported angrily ‘there is a number of people fishing from the Balustrades on Richmond Bridge to the great annoyance of the public and injury of the bridge’; and in 1826 he had to urge the Board to curb the activities of disorderly fruit-sellers on several of the bridges.

Halpin, the Port and the Estuary

His work on both port and estuary was remarkably extensive. To ensure he had absolute mastery of the latest techniques in port organization and marine building, he made several visits to England and Wales. In 1810, for instance, he spent more than a month in London and the south of England studying dock design, lighthouse equipment and the latest techniques in stream dredging and tunneling. It was after this visit that he remarked how he ‘would rather have 2 Irish than 3 English labourers’ and how he had dismissed a lantern maker in London as ‘the most trifling and unsatisfactory kind of man I ever had any dealings with’. In 1814, he introduced stream dredging techniques to the Dublin estuary.

Halpin & the North Bull

In 1818, he was asked to carry out a new survey of the outer harbour at Dublin and of a proposed northern breakwater, the North Bull Wall, in order to make Dublin a deepwater port. As research, he went to study the breakwater at Plymouth but found little to assist him. He duly recommended Francis Giles be commissioned to survey the harbour and bar. Giles commenced this survey in June 1818, aided by Halpin, and their joint report was submitted to the Board in May 1919. The design for the breakwater was based on earlier proposals from 1786 by William Chapman and two members of the board, Maquay and Crosthwaite. When built, the north and south breakwaters enclosed a large volume of water and this was employed on the ebb tide to scour the sand deposits from the bar, thus allowing Dublin to develop as a deepwater port.

OTHER PROJECTS

In 1816, while preparing to construct the Bull Wall, Halpin also oversaw the creation of a new channel for the River Tolka from Clontarf Island across Brown’s Patch to the Liffey. Among the other major and manifold projects he was involved with were: raising part of the South Wall east of the Half Moon Battery to its present height; strengthening the base of the Poolbeg lighthouse; conferring with Charles Blacker Vignoles on the extension of the Kingstown railway on a causeway across the old Dun Laoghaire harbour; consultations with Thomas Telford and Sir William Cubitt about the deep-water berths at North Wall Quay; constructing the large new berthing-pool in the earth-banked basin of East Wall (known as Halpin’s Pond and later incorporated into the Alexandra Basin) and steering the first graving dock projects through to the appointment of William Dargan as contractor. In 1846, he helped ward off a proposal by the Tidal Harbours Commissioners to divert the Dodder through Irishtown and form a new basin by the South Bull. He designed the structure for the first patent slip to be built in the port. In 1839, he proposed a bascule or swivel bridge where the Talbot Memorial Bridge would be built 140 years later.

Halpin & the Lighthouses

In 1810 the Ballast Board was made responsible for all lighthouses, beacons and seamarks around the coast of Ireland. The Board extended Halpin’s responsibilities by appointing the 31-year-old Superintendant of Lighthouses as well as Inspector of Works. At the time there were only 14 lighthouses around the Irish Coast, many of them in what Halpin described as deplorable condition, badly maintained and baldy managed. By 1867, when responsibility was transferred to the Commissioners of Irish Lights, there were 72 lighthouses. Over the next four and a half decades, Halpin oversaw the construction and establishment of 53 new lighthouses and the modernisation or rebuilding of 15 others, in addition to the establishment of numerous minor aids to navigation - buoys, beacons, and perches.

Some other lighthouses were subsequently discontinued because their location proved ineffective. In other words, he designed and built a new lighthouse every fifteen months. Most of the construction was by direct labour. These included the Bailey (1813) at the entrance to Dublin Bay, the Tuskar Rock (1815) guarding the approach to Rosslare Harbour, as well as Inishtrahull (1813), Skelling Michael (1826), Tory Island (1832) and Fastnet (1854). Arguably his greatest achievement was the Haulbowline Lighthouse, built on a dangerous semi-submerged rock at the entrance to Carlingford Lough. Strong tidal conditions of up to five knots added to the danger and technical difficulties but the lighthouse was successfully completed in 1824. Halpin also oversaw the repair and re-equipping of the previously existing lighthouses, effectively rebuilding the Poolbeg lighthouse (1819-20).

Under his direction the Ballast Board established an effective management structure for the design, construction, and maintenance of the Lighthouse Service, initiated a vital program of inspection and regularized the employment of construction and quarry personnel, lighthouse keepers, tenders, tender crews, and stores personnel. Gradually during the early nineteenth century a proper marine aids to navigation infrastructure was put in place.

Private Work

Somehow Halpin also found time to engage in some private architectural work. It seems likely he was involved with the new Corn Exchange on Bugh Quay.

Sudden Death

George’s wife Elizabeth died in July 1850 and was buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin. Four years later, George Halpin collapsed and died suddenly while carrying out a lighthouse inspection in July 1854. He was buried in Mount Jerome, where his headstone gives his age at the time of death as 75 years.

George Halpin Junior (1804 – 1869)

So far, virtually nothing is known of the Halpin family history. It is known, however, that George Halpin, Junior, was a qualified civil engineer employed by the Board as assistant Inspector of Works and assistant Inspector of Lighthouses from June 1830. As such, George Halpin junior shared a good deal of the workload. Between 1834 and 1840, the younger George was greatly involved in deepening the channels and building new quay walls east of the Custom House. During this time, he married Julia Villiers (1815 – 1889),who begat him nine children, two of whom died young. The first three were daughters - Isabella Julia Halpin (who married Thomas Thorpe and had 7 children), Mary Halpin (who died before 1880, married Patrick Byrne and left a daughter Annie Byrne) and Margaret Halpin (who died in Ireland aged10 months). Next came two boys, William Osborne Halpin (see below) and George Halpin (see below). Then, a fourth daughter, Annie Caroline Halpin (who married Arthur Henry Thompson and had three girls) and a third son, Robert Halpin (who married Mettie in England and had two children, Maud and George Alfred). The fourth son, Alfred Halpin, died aged four in Ireland while a fifth daughter Louisa Halpin was born in 1856 and died unmarried in 1934).

Like his father, George also went to England to converse with the likes of Telford, Giles and Cubitt. In later life, he carried out the design of the single-span metal arched Rory O’More Bridge. He designed several lighthouses, including that at Aranmore in Donegal, completed in 1865. In 1847, he was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers of Ireland (to which body his father never belonged), and served as a member of its council from 1848 to 1851. Two months after George Halpin senior died in 1854, George Halpin junior was promoted to the posts of Inspector of Works and Superintendent of Lighthouses. However, by 1859, George was dogged by ill-health, probably due to 'the burden imposed on him by reason of his necessary attendance on new lighthouses or those being renovated in various parts of the country'. The Ballast Board decided to reduce his duties in respect of the Port and leave him to focus on lighthouses. His duties at the Port were carried out by Bindon Blood Stoney who had been his assistant since 1856.

THE FALL OUT WITH STONEY

By 1861, 33-year-old Stoney was acting as executive engineer. A rift soon emerged between Halpin and Stoney. Halpin was frequently out of Dublin on lighthouse duties. The travel and long absences did his health no good. While away, his ambitious assistant submitted a proposal to the Port and Dock Board advocating the extension of the North Wall Quay by using 350 ton super-blocks, to be put in position by means of a special floating crane and diving bell. Halpin was furious Stoney had gone to the Board without first consulting him. He argued that the size of the proposed blocks was unfeasible. Stoney begged to differ, pointing out that blocks of that size had been successfully used in the port of London for many years and were also being used at Southampton. The Board were eager to act on Stoney’s cost-effective proposals but did not wish to offend Halpin. As it happened, George Halpin saved their embarrassment when he retired in March 1862. Stoney was appointed the new Inspector of Works and, in 1868, became the first chief engineer of the newly constituted Dublin Port and Docks Board. George Halpin Junior died in Dublin in 1869.

LT. OSWALD HALPIN (1810- - 1834)

George may have had a brother, Oswald Halpin, registered as 'Pen (Mr Baillie), July 4, 1825' in the Alumni Dublinenses, 1846. Oswald was born in Dublin in 1810, the son 'of George, Generosus'. The Calcutta Christian Observer 1834 (p. 536) notes the death on August 14th of Lieutenant Oswald Halpin, 7th Regiment Bombay NI, aged 25 years.

WILLIAM HALPIN

George Halpin Junior's eldest son was William Osborne Halpin. In 1869, he purchased a grave plot at Mount Jerome Cemetery in Dublin. William's sister Louisa (1856 - 1934) was buried there on 29th October 1934. William appears in Thoms Dublin directories from about 1880 to at least 1900 and lived at The Laurels, Torquay Road, Foxrock, now a very wooded, upmakret area between the golf course and Leopardstown racecourse. In the 1911 Census of Ireland, his presumed widow Anna Maria Halpin was living at The Laurels with a servant and her son, William Oswald Halpin. She is registered as 62 years of age, Church of Ireland, married for 30 years and mother of two sons, William and George.

William Oswald Halpin was most likely at school at the High School, then in Harcourt Street, but later removed to Rathgar, Dublin. He seems to have left there in 1900 aged 13 or 14 and then gone on to Trinity College Dublin aged 17 in 1904. In 1911, he was described as a 24 year old medical student. He obtained a BA from Trinity College Dublin. During the Great War he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He seems to have died aged 31 of wounds received on 10th August 1918, the day after a hostile aeroplane dropped a bomb on the regimental headquarters of the 4th (Queens Own) Hussars with whom he was working. He is buried at the at the Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery near Ameins in France. His name is etched on the war memorial in the Tullow Church of Ireland on Brighton Road, Carrickmines, Co. Dublin.

William's brother George, a doctor based in Reading, England, married Antoinette Berthe Ermerins, of Dutch origin. They had a daughter, Elizabeth (who was living in France in 2003) and George Ermerins Halpin (a doctor who died in service in 1942 and is buried in Egypt).

* 1911 Census, Stillorgan DED, Galloping Green South Townland.

GEORGE HALPIN III

George Halpin Junior's second son, George Halpin III (1843 – 1910) is of personal interest on two accounts.

Firstly, his wife Annie Watters (1849 – 1927) was a daughter of a farmer, Bartholomew Watters and Mary Malone of Rathmore, a former Bunbury property in Co. Carlow. George and Annie were married in my local village of Rathvilly, Co. Carlow, on 4th June 1868.

Secondly, their daughter Eva Halpin went to South Africa and married the ill-fated Alfred Rudall, nephew of my wife’s great-grandfather. The extraordinay Tale of Alfred and Eva may be found here.

George Halpin III was born in Tinryland, County Carlow, in 1843 or 1844. Why was he born in Carlow? Perhaps George senior or junior had acquired a small estate or interest in the county? Or did either of their wives perhaps have Carlow connections? At the time of his marriage, his address was given as 'Elmview Rathgar' and his profession as 'architect'. The Carlow connection must have still been strong. His Carlow-born wife Annie Watters would surely not have strayed far from her family farm or into very wide circles. Their marriage was witnessed by a John Moran.

George and Annie had eleven children. George's death certificate of 1910 shows that there was one female and one male deceased when he died. The deceased girl, Francis, was born in New Jersey in 1871 indicating the young architect was on the move by then. Their other children were Mary, Annie, Eva, Louisa, Alfred, Julia, George, Alice and Ivy.

It seems as though George and Annie were born to travel. During the 1870s and 1880s, they lived variously in the USA, Canada, South Africa and, finally, Australia where they settled at Wollongong, New South Wales in about 1884. Their youngest son George Sydney Halpin was born in 1884, two months after their arrival in Australia. He later bred and trained racehorses in New South Wales and married an English girl, Lavinia Figtre.

George Halpin III died on 7th May 1910.

Bibliography

‘The Liffey in Dublin’, JW de Courcy (Gill and Macmillan, 1996)

'A History of The Port of Dublin' by H.A. Gilligan (published by Gill & Macmillen Ltd, Goldenbridge, Dublin 8; 1988; ISBN 0-7171-1578-X) gives an excellent overview of the achievements of the two George Halpins.

‘Founding Father of the Irish Lighthouse Service’ , Frank Pelly, BEAM (2004-2005 edition)

'A Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland', A W Skempton (Thomas Telford, 2002). This biographical reference work looks specifically at the lives, works and careers of those individuals involved in civil engineering whose careers began before 1830. The background, training and achievements of engineers over 250 years are described by specialist authors.

With thanks to Bill Webster, Julia Moran, Linda Ralston, Eldrith Ward and Joan Gordon.

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