Early Life
Buck was born on 1 April 1789 at Stoke Holy Cross, near Norwich. His parents were Quakers and sent him, with his two brothers, to the Quaker School at Ackworth, West Yorkshire. With his schooling completed, his father placed him with a wholesaler at Tower Hill, London, as he wanted him to be involved in trade, but the position did not suit Buck, and so he looked for something else. Around 1807, the East London Waterworks Company were building Old Ford pumping station, which had been designed by Ralph Walker, and Buck managed to secure a job there. When the job was finished, Walker moved on to Farlington, to work on a water supply scheme for Portsmouth and Gosport. The scheme had been authorised by an Act of Parliament in 1809, and Buck went to work as resident engineer, reporting to Walker. The scheme suffered from an intermittent water supply, as did a competing scheme engineered by William Nicholson.
Read more about this topic: George W. Buck
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“The girl must early be impressed with the idea that she is to be “a hand, not a mouth”; a worker, and not a drone, in the great hive of human activity. Like the boy, she must be taught to look forward to a life of self-dependence, and early prepare herself for some trade or profession.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and larger circles, and that without end.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)