Benjamin Piercy

Notable for the construction of reailways in Wales and Sardinia
eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railways_in_Sardinia

Notes

• http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl...

At the reading of the will of Benjamin, after his death in 1888, it was learned with surprise that his wife and children [were not] his heirs were his brother Robert and sister Jane. A decision reached after finding that none of the children harbored a passion for farming and ranching.

[his son Bertie later bought Villa Piercy from the Trustees of the estate]

• http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.luig...
• http://wbo.llgc.org.uk/en/s-PIER-BEN-1827.html
• of Marchwill Hall, Wrexham, and Macomer, Sardinia
• http://www.tomysardinia.com/filen/816.htm

In 1863 in Benjamin Piercy, who had made the south Wales Railway and the railway of India, was given the task of realizing the railway network of Sardinia, and in 1880, after the inauguration of the lines-Newfoundland and Chilivani Cagliari-Porto Torres, was also responsible for construction of secondary railways, now called complementary.

After the approval, in 1865, the Law on ademprivi, piercy received as compensation for its various activities and farmland Macomer Bolotana, where he began the construction of one of the most modern farms and planted an efficient livestock, and introducing breeds of horses and cows unknown island. He settled in places Badde Salighes, where he built Villa Piercy, a building shaped like a four-sided castle, with vaulted ceilings and decorated in colonial style.

Beside the villa built an village of forty houses, can accommodate 97 settlers and 210 inhabitants. If we tell the whole truth, Benjamin Piercy is not popular in Sardinia. For the realization of its projects, the forests were destroyed much of Sardinia: many of the sleepers of the railway lines across Europe were built with wood trees Sardinians. So Sardinia, was once a huge forest like Corsica, is now covered only by low maquis.

Builder of Railways eg Royal Sardinian Railways and Cambrian Railway

Benjamin Piercy (1827-1888), civil engineer, was born near Trefeglwys, Montgomeryshire. He trained in the office of his father, who was a commissioner, valuer and surveyor for the inclosure of commons and for tithe commutation awards, and in 1847 became chief assistant to a surveyor and land-agent in Montgomery. Piercy was asked by Henry Robertson (1816-1888) for assistance in preparing plans for the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway Bill in 1851, and later for a railway between Oswestry and Newtown. He then went into independent practice, and in the course of his work gained a reputation as a witness in parliamentary committees, with the result that he became involved in nearly every project introducing railways into Wales. His notable engineering feats included bridges over the Severn, Mawddach and Traeth Bychan estuaries, and also the Talerddig cutting. From 1861, he became heavily involved in engineering works in Sardinia, Rome, France, India and Burma, but he returned to Wales and purchased the Marchwiel Hall estate, Denbighshire, in 1881, devoting most of the rest of his life to civil engineering projects in north Wales. He stood unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in 1883, and died in London in 1888. After his death the estate was managed by the Piercy Trustees.

National Archives of Wales

http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/cgi-bin/anw/fulldesc_nofr?inst...

see http://genforum.genealogy.com/piercy/messages/196.html