Benjamin Blyth II

Benjamin Hall Blyth FRSE (25 May 1849 – 13 May 1917), often called Benjamin Blyth II, was a Scottish civil engineer.

Family

Blyth, who was born at 36 Minto Street, Edinburgh, was the eldest of the nine children of Mary Dudgeon Wright and the railway engineer Benjamin Blyth.

Rugby Union career

Amateur career

Blyth played for Merchistonians.

Provincial career

Blyth played in the world's very first representative provincial match in November 1872. This was the 'Inter-City': the match between Glasgow District and Edinburgh District. Blyth represented the Edinburgh side.

Administrative career

He became the 3rd President of the Scottish Rugby Union, holding the post between 1875 and 1876.

Engineering career

Following his father's death, Blyth entered the family engineering consultancy and became a partner five years later. Blyth served as a consultant to the North British Railway and the Great North of Scotland Railway and served in an advisory capacity to the British Army with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps. In 1872, he married Millicent Taylor with whom he had a son, Benjamin Edward, who died in infancy, and a daughter, Elsie Winifred. On 7 February 1898 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Political career

In later life, Blyth lived in a large Victorian townhouse at 17 Palmerston Place in Edinburgh's West End.

Blyth stood as the Unionist candidate for the 1911 Haddingtonshire by-election, but lost to the Liberal candidate, John Deans Hope by 468 votes. One of Blyth's policies was opposing Irish Home Rule.

Death

Blyth was widowed on 12 September 1914. He died in North Berwick on 13 May 1917, of "spittielioma of tongue" and was survived by his daughter. His nephew, Benjamin Hall Blyth (sometimes referred to as Benjamin Blyth III) was the son of his brother Francis Creswick Blyth – who was taken on by Blyth and Blyth in 1909, continued the consultancy after his death.