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

In the year 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, Aden, Bermuda, Burma, Canada, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, India, Ireland, Malta 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.

Timothy Crick has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and spent many years in industry as a design engineer. He has lectured in industrial design and the history of industrial architecture and he is a member of the Fortress Study Group, the Coast Defense Study Group (US) and the Palmerston Forts Society.