Transcript

of

John May Martin [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol.  49, (1917), pp. 23-25.

by

Maxwell Adams (Ed.).

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1917 Barnstaple meeting. Mr Martin as a young man was an adventurer who participated as a surveyor of the first railway constructed in the Southern Hemisphere. He later became a Fellow of the Surveyors' Institution, the Royal Sanitary Institute, and the Royal Meteorological Society, taking a leading role in several major South Devon civil engineering projects. The obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

Mr. Martin, who was the son of Mr. John Middleton Martin of Hatherleigh, was born at Hatherleigh, North Devon, on the 8th August, 1835. He married, 14th June, 1862, Emma Jane, daughter of Daniel Gooding Newcombe of Exeter, and had issue four sons and three daughters, of whom three sons and two daughters survive. Mr. Martin died at Richmond, Surrey, after a short illness, on 23rd December, 1916.
His father and mother having died within a few years of his birth, he was brought up by an uncle, and received his early education at Hatherleigh, and at King's Lodge College, Exeter; but, as a matter of fact, remained a student to the day of his death.
In 1852, he went by sailing ship to an uncle then residing at Adelaide, in Australia, and while there pursued various occupations, among others that of a sheep farmer and of a surveyor on the Adelaide City and Port Railway - the first railway constructed in the Southern Hemisphere.
Returning to England a few years later, also by sailing ship, round Cape Horn, he entered the employ of Mr Parker, surveyor and drainage engineer, of Exeter, with whom he subsequently entered into partnership, and on Mr. Parker's death continued the practice on his own account, and for twenty-five years was actively engaged in carrying out important works, such as land drainage, especially on large estates such as those of the Duchy of Cornwall, and of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Devon and the Earl Fortescue.
His practice also included municipal undertakings, such as Water Supply and Sewerage, and in 1874, when Teignmouth was threatened with drought; he devised and carried to completion, in a few weeks, a scheme of water supply which saved the situation, carrying out later similar works at Ottery St. Mary and Budleigh Salterton. He also devoted his attention to salmon ladders, of which he constructed several on the Exe, the Dart, the Teign, and the Taw.
Mr. Martin was a Fellow of the Surveyors' Institution, the Royal Sanitary Institute, and the Royal Meteorological Society. But geology and antiquities were his favourite studies, and he became, in 1871, a member of the Devonshire Association, to the Transactions of which Society he contributed many valuable papers. In his earlier papers he traced the wasting of the Exmouth Warren, which, since the construction of the South Devon Railway and the consequent cutting off of the supply of material derived from the cliffs between Dawlish and Teignmouth, has proceeded at a rapid rate.
Later on, he turned his attention to County History, more particularly to that of his native town of Hatherleigh, and its notabilities, and acquired the MS. History of that town by the late Mr. Short, which is now in the possession of his son, Dr. J. M. Martin.
His working career was cut short in 1886, when he was only 51 years of age, owing to a crippling neuritis which followed an attack of measles; but though thus seriously handicapped by his physical disabilities he contrived to carry out a certain amount of engineering work, and in spite of steadily increasing weakness, in addition to his research work noted above, he, in 1894, published a chart showing the fluctuations in the prices of wheat since A.D. 1260, together with a record of the wages, wars, weather, epidemics, and other notable occurrences during the period. This chart, which was engraved from the original copy executed by himself, is a remarkable piece of draughtsmanship for a man of fifty-nine years of age, suffering from such disabilities.
It should be added that in early life he helped to form the Hatherleigh Company of Volunteers, which produced such remarkable and famous marksmen as Capt. Pearse, G.M.
Mr. Martin was a man of strong and dominating personality, tempered by singular chivalry and high-mindedness. Notwithstanding the loss of both his parents in early life, without relatives to help him, he carved for himself a successful career. His death is a great loss to the Association.